I will be spending all of tomorrow at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine teaching a one-day workshop. The class is an intro to hand tools class in which we will be building a small pine box. Depending on experience and comfort level, the students will be joining it with either rabbets and nails or dovetails.
I truly believe that taking on small projects in inexpensive wood is the best way to learn. I’ve probably only ever made a dozen “practice” joints in my life. It always seemed like a better use of my time to make a “practice” project. Small boxes and tables are great for developing your marking, sawing, and planing skills in the context of an actual build.
As a one-day class, it’ll be interested to see how it goes. It’ll be crash course, for sure.