Large picture frame rabbet

I have been making large picture frames out of 2.5"x1.5" elm with rabbets front on back on 1000mm x-carve. The rabbets are 9/16 wide and 3/8 on the front and 1/2 on the back. The sides are 39x31 (I have to do the 39 in two steps.) I have been using a 1/4" bit. The good news is that they turn out just fine. The bad news is that each rabbet is roughly an hour, total on the machine is over 8 hours. I have the original Quiet Cut spindle. Is there a more effective way to do this? I am concerned that when I have a bunch of these (like ten) to do for an exhibition, it will really beat up my machine. I know that you can do this with dado blades in a table saw but I don’t have one. I guess I could find someone to do this for me. Not sure the results will be quite as good. Any recommendations on better ways to do this? The project is one I did of hardware stores and the frame looks like something a person going to a hardware store would do. Pretty cool in my opinion.

Seems like this would be a good job for a table mounted router. Sure would be a lot faster.

Makes sense though another piece of equipment I do not have. But it does raise a compromise which is upgrading the spindle. Maybe the DeWalt DWP611?

You could make a cheap router table. You have the perfect tool for creating the mounting holes and pocket for router and guide bushings.
It could be little more than a piece of shelf board with router attached clamped to saw horses.

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How about laying out several pieces on one project? It appears that you have a 1000mm XC. In that 31", you could stack several blanks across that width, even if you have to tile the additional length. You could make a jig that holds several frame rails/stiles and machine several at a time, then slide them down a bit to finish. A bit of creative work in Easel to make templates and you could bang out several frames in the same amount of time.

Thanks. Yes, there is plenty of width. But all of the time is taken up in cutting and virtually none in moving into position. Might save a bit by putting two pieces against one another thereby saving the bit of overlap at the edge Unless I misunderstand, I think I need to concentrate on feed speed and cut depth. I suspect I could increase them with my present setup but the Dewalt or some other heavier spindle is looking like a real option. It has roughly 3 times the power of my Quiet Cut. It is more complicated than power since you still need to make good cuts. There also might be some router bit that would help with that.

I am not saying the Dewalt upgrade will not help.
However if your quiet spindle is meeting all your other requirements you need to think outside the Xcarve for rabbeting straight boards. The Dewalt will be considerably louder that your current spindle.
I just went into easel and designed a pocket 0.563" X 30" X 0.375 deep and based on my normal cut settings carve time would be 14 minutes.
With my table router it would be more like 3 minutes or less doing it in two passes.

Mark - I appreciate your advice and your taking the time to experiment in Easel. I understand that a table router is made for this kind of job but I don’t have the space for one and there are other issues that make it impractical. Best route if I had a lot to do at once would probably be someone who had one and pay them to do the work. That being said, from where I am now, 14 minutes would be a home run. What is the difference in your setup? Spindle? Bit? Am I not being aggressive enough on feed speed? Thanks for your help - Chuck

I use a generic trim router from Menards copy of a Makita 700.
My cut settings would be 60 IPM, plunge at 19 and DOC 0.05 with 1/4" bit.