It worked well for me. I put in a smaller blade to get the proper clearance, put the insert in, clamped it down, and turned the blade back up very slowly until the slot was cut.

Now, I have a belt drive table, so if the blade binds, at worst I need to buy a new belt. I did have a finger on the off switch the whole time.

Hokay, maybe it's not as crazy as I thought.
I suspect there are other things I need to work on with this saw first, though. Like the alignment, and probably cleaning it all over.

Pain in the butt.

I have a friend on a budget who is considering using the new Rustoleum transformation kit to do his eighties kitchen cabinets.
http://cabinets.rustoleumtransformations.ca/

Anyone have any advice, or use this first hand?
Any experienced comments on quality of this product?

On the zero clearance insert. It's well worth the time or $ spent. Especially if you do small pieces. If you get a dado blade, you will want to make another for that. Obviously the normal insert will not work if you get into larger dado sizes and the entire gap left from no insert at all is pretty wide. Unless the pieces being cut are big, it becomes more of a necessity than just to prevent chipping.

If you make them. Do be careful and use a VERY sharp blade and strong clamps. Starting with a thin blade like Fred mentioned is a good idea as well. I tried it with my old utility blade in and once it got so far it started pushing vs. cutting. Switched to my new kerf blade and the problem went away.

Zero clearance inserts are a must to make clean cuts with no tear out.

So today I did some playing with the saw, just to re-familiarize myself with some stuff. Ended up doing a tongue and groove joint with a couple pieces of plywood using just the regular saw blade. I'm rather proud of myself, even if it did take me 2.5 hours of fiddling.

And yes, I know it would be a *&!^ of a lot easier with a dado, but I'm waiting to buy stuff until I see what my parents got me for Xmas.

Of course, I was a lot more proud of myself before I realized that I can't add or subtract to save my life, and the board I had made was still not big enough for what I intended to use it.

So back to the tongue and groove cutting, but then I ran out of light. Sigh.

The most enjoyment I get out of wood working is figuring things out. Well done Ken.

Now go do the same thing with your router! Just don't forget to cut with router going in the right direction or it'll climb away from your straight edge and across the sheet / board - then the floor... Guess how I know that.... Pretty friggin scary being chaced by a router with a carbide bit looking for your ankle.

Ah, you understand!

Unfortunately, I don't have a router yet. I think my upcoming shopping list looks something like this:

1. Pocket joiner kit
1.5 Blu-ray player
2. dado blade
3. upgraded fence for the table saw (cha-ching!)
4. pulley 'n' chain kit for the saw
5. router
6. router box

Project list:
1. shelf for kid's TV cabinet (dead easy!)
2. shelf for our closet (easy!)
3. cabinet for kids' toyboxes (probably sorta easy?)
4. crown molding in living room

Sounds like a fun weekend.
If you keep mastering different joinery types then you can move the pocket joiner kit further down the list. I'm not trying to sound all experty though. I have one and it's great for many things.

I love pocket hole joinery and use it frequently when one side of the joint won't be seen. Quick, strong and simple.

Edit: But I'm not experty either!