Amateur construction to gather dry air (5)

I believe the answer is:

ditty

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'air' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'amateur construction to gather dry' is the wordplay.
'amateur construction' becomes 'diy' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'to gather' is an insertion indicator.
'dry' becomes 'tt' (abbreviation for teetotal).
'diy' placed around 'tt' is 'DITTY'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for ditty that I've seen before include "Little tune" , "Simple tune" , "Light-hearted song" , "Short simple song" , "Air" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times and The Sunday Times.

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