Glad to contribute back to a community that has given me so much.

Interesting you were able to "free hand" that little dremel router accurately considering the dust and grain.

I actually copied the top half of the two stations around the location of the bow hatch and built a small one foot section to practice on. I tried using a regular 1 3/4 hp plunge router, but the torque is just too great. It will take off on you rather quickly.

After that I started Googling and discovered lots of videos of marquetry techniques and discovered the world of lutherie (the art and making of stringed instruments). I quickly discovered that there are lots of luthiers out there doing very detailed inlay on guitars. So it made sense to figure out how they are doing it and what tools they use.

I have two dremels, but one is very cheap and came as part of a kit to clean out old tile grout. That ended up being the one that fit the Stewart Macdonald base. The torque is so low that you can handle it easily. If you've scored the pattern properly with the Exacto knife, you'll see a chip fly off and hear a small pop as soon as you get close enough to the line. So you rough out the center. I made roughly three passes over each in different directions. Its difficult to hold the base perfectly flat against a curved boat. Then go very slow and sneak up on the line and just cut off 1/8" to a 1/4" of the line at a time. Then go back and clean up a few spots with the knife.

I took friday off from work to use up my vacation before the end of the year. Overall process to most of the three day weekend. And took plenty of breaks to let the eyes and hands relax. Wearing 1.75 readers and the 2X OptiVISOR, my head was positioned only a couple of inches away from the bit. Eventually you forget that you're routing away a 1/16" recess. It looks like you're removing 1/4" of material when viewed that close up.