If you have a lot of wood to remove, pickup a razor plane. Most hardware stores will have them. It makes for a lot faster progress. Iwould only remove wood on one side of the stick for each dimention. That maintains a 90 Degree angle on two knownstraight sides that you can then gage the sanded sides from.

While you are at the hardware store, Buy a narrow sanding belt of the finest grit you can find. Usually around 80 Grit, and as long as you can find. Pick up a small roll of carpet tape and a 1x4 board that is straight and long enough that the sanding belt can be cut and then layed out straight on. The belts are ususally around 24" long layed out straight. Use the carpet tape and tape the sanding belt to the board. When you cut the belt, cut it centered on the splice. That splice is noticable on the back of the belt and is usually a 45 degree splce. That leaves the center of the belt as flat as your board. Put the tape on the board first, and keep it just back from an edge. When you put the belt on the tape, keep it aligned with the edge of the board. You can then hold the board on edge on your bench and slide the wood to be sanded along board. This keeps a 90 degree angle on the sanded piece. When sanding the edges of asheet, I lay a piece of the rubber drawer liner down and put the sanding board on it and the try to position your handsso you have three equal segments on the piece being sanded. Use light pressure, and only stroke the piece onthe sanding board in one direction. This prevents, or at least helpsprevent a curve being sanded in fromthe back and forth handmovement. If you keep this board clean, it will be good for many a build. I've got six builds and three rebulds on mine and it is neary as new.

One other toolfrom the hardware store is a 36" aluminnum door sill. Check the closely for being straight. When you get it home, drill out the mounting holes as they are usually punched in and the sill willnot lay flat on a table because the aluminum is flared from the hole being punched. I picked up thistrick from the guy that was putting in inlayed flooring in our kitchen. A nice long fine edge straight edge for around $8. The flooring guy had a 45 degree cut on one end, I though about doing that, but acombination square iseasier to handleand more than big enoughformost all of our angle cuts.

Don