Dovetail Plying Box – First hand tool project

I would class myself as a novice at working wood despite recently making 2 electric guitars on a course with guidance and instruction (Bailey Guitars – in Scotland) . However, without those courses I don’t think I would have ventured towards working wood with hand tools. Those guitars were built with a lot of machinery which I don’t have at home. I wanted to create the same sense of achievement at home and realised building a guitar on my own required better skills and knowledge than I had.

At the end of last year, I discovered Paul Sellers and the master class site – I’m fascinated to learn about this craft…every Wednesday is a highlight in my week. After seeing the Dovetail Box project, I wanted to build a box. Fortunately, my partner gave the excuse to do it – she loves to spin and ply her own wool but her plying ‘tools’ were make-shift and unusable resulting in several expletives.  So I set myself on a mission to provide a more functional solution….here’s the result.

Wood is Sapele which I found quite difficult to work with – the grain appears to be irregular and I had trouble with tear out…but it’s finished 🙂

My partner is more pleased with it than myself but I am proud to have completed it.