HeartEZ Router Inlay Template

I am a novice woodworker who more "tinkers" than makes quality furniture or anything truly complicated. I took a chance on this item during a project where I wished there was a little more depth on the face of a box I was making. I had seen some videos and how-to outlines on the Internet, and wanted to give wood-in-wood inlay a shot to see how it goes and get a feeling of how easy or difficult it would be. This item did not require any "free-style" routing, which is the kiss of death for a project when I am involved...The template in this kit is made from PVC, but not a particularly strong one. As a result, by the time it was delivered to me from the pain-inflicting workers at Amazon, it had a few dings and dents. The piece itself was not damaged enough to warrant return. I suspect the material was used to minimize production cost; otherwise, a stronger, more rigid, and more durable material may have been a better choice for longevity (as other tools and sharp/fast spinning death bits whirl about).The three different sizes are convenient. The biggest selling point of this template is the ability to pick the size you want, while retaining the ability to do inlay-in-inlay work with virtually no additional preparation. The guiding lines makes inlay-in-inlay alignment effectively painless. The difference in sizing of the hearts is not significant overall; the template may have been more effective with (1) more holes and (2) greater variance of sizing to allow variance in the resulting inlay patterns. I suppose if you are inclined, you can manufacture your own template having the size(s) you want or need, but then you likely would not be dropping twenty-to-thirty smackers on a similar template.The template does require support close to any edges that are unsupported by the work piece itself. Otherwise, the router will tilt and everything goes sideways quickly. This may or may not matter with the negative "receiving" hole being routed in the larger piece, but it is tough to cut positives close to the edge of a target work piece. Additional "same-thickness" pieces should be mounted around the target to ensure safe operation and good results. I suppose another solution to to purchase a smaller hand-held plunge router; I used a Bosch 1617 and it made me feel secure only when the pieces were fully supported a full two or more inches all around the target at the same height.Overall, I'm happy with the template. It makes the routing work easy and painless, and once the router is initialized and setup properly, it's rather easy to get a good result. The removal of any free-style "routing to the line" is major; you can get perfect positive and negative pieces for fitting without ever guessing if the pieces are going to fit perfectly because you are noob because the router wandered too far away or too far over a pencil line at 15000 RPM).I will use this template for as long as I want easy heart inlays in my projects. After that, I may consider getting some "negative" templates 3D printed or self-manufactured to experiment with different shapes (like a batman symbol, or something for bat houses). In the meantime, this template does indeed make inlaying rather easy that looks really good with the proper choice of woods.