I'm building a bookshelf for my FIL. It's 36" wide with shelves ~10"
deep. The shelf supports also serve as the stretchers between the
uprights or vertical members. Think of an "H" with multiple cross-
bars (6 if it matters, for 6 shelves) on the front and rear sections.
These stretchers are 2" wide by X3/4" thick red oak and are M&T'd
into the verticals. It won't be "library" strength, but an 83 year old
doesn't read that many books, it's mostly to add something personal to
his room at the "assisted living" center. (That move broke SWMBO's
heart, and almost broke mine as well.)

The shelves will be 3/4" (OK, 23/32) Chinaply. The plan is to rabbet
the inside edge of the stretchers 1/4" wide and 1" deep so the edges
of the ply are hidden when it's dropped into the rabbet, they can't
slide off but need no fastening, and there's a 1/4" lip to keep books
from sliding off the front and back of the shelf.

Now, cutting the rabbet. Alternatives a

Use the jointer, but I think its max rabbet depth is 1/2" so that may
be a no-go. It'll take multiple passes in any case.

Use the router table and multiple passes along the fence with a 1/2"
or 3/4" straight bit buried in the router table fence (big bit for
strength vs using a 1/4" bit). 1" deep will take several passes.
What's a reasonable max cut depth? 1/8", 1/4", 3/8"?

Use the TS with a sacrificial facing on the fence and a 1/4" dado
stack against the sacrificial facing. I suspect I could cut the dado
in 2 passes on the TS, 1 at 3/4" and another at 1". The sacrificial
fence thought is 'cause I'm not comfortable trapping the board between
the regular fence and a 1/4" dado stack, but maybe I'm being a CS.

'Course I could just glue strips along the backs of the stretchers and
forget the rabbet idea entirely, but that ain't real artistic.

Thoughts?