How to Clean Glue Squeeze-Out
George VondriskaDescription
If you’re putting woodworking projects together, you’re going to get squeeze-out. It’s nearly impossible to avoid, but it can actually be beneficial. A little glue coming out of the joint provides some reassurance that you have enough glue IN the joint. The question is, what do you do with squeeze-out?
It depends…
How you deal with glue squeeze-out depends on the end use of the project. One thing George avoids, at least most of the time, is wiping the glue with a damp rag. He’ll explain why he thinks this is a bad idea, in most cases.
Exceptions to the rule
There are, of course, no hard and fast rules in woodworking. This means that there are times when using a damp rag is OK, and you can get away with it. It has to do with what the next step is. How you’re following up the gluing operation affects how you deal with the squeeze-out.
There are many approaches…
George explains what you shouldn’t do with squeeze-out, and gives you some tricks for dealing with it, but there are a number of approaches to this problem. Check out our great article that covers tips for cleaning glue squeeze-out. And, while you’ll nearly always have squeeze-out on your projects, there are ways to prevent it from ending up being a huge mess. Inside corners are notoriously difficult to clean glue out of, but there are ways of protecting inside corners from glue squeeze-out.
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How do you deal with through tenons? Do you place glue on the tenon and/or the mortice? If you put the glue in the mortice, the mortice will collect the glue as it passes through. If you do not place the glue in the mortice, the bond between the mortice and tenon will be compromised to some degree. And then there's the issue of glue collecting on the tenon as it's pushed further in the mortice ready to squeeze out onto the cheeks as the tenon is fully slid into the mortice. So what do you do?