On Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:37:41 -0600, "Jon Slaughter"
I'm not a woodworker so I don't know how this is would generally be done(I
imagine it would be extremely easy with a cnc). Obviously one can use a
chisel but I'm not proficient enough to make it look decent and probably
will screw up the wood.

The most important part of the the cuttin you need to make is the
outside edges on your project surface. To that end, I'd suggest
cutting a through template (using a piece of sheet plastic or
something like that) in something else the exact size of the item you
want to insert. Once you have that cut to size and to your
satisfaction, then you clamp it to your actual project surface and use
that template with a razor knive or similar to cut the surface of your
actual project. If you screw up the initial cutting of the template,
it's a small loss and not affecting the actual project surface.

Assuming you don't cut the inside edges of the template, whatever
lines you do cut will be on the inside edges of your project and
relatively unimportant. You'd cut until you're satisfied with the
indent you want to create.