Spreading Glue with Q-tips

Dowels are a great way to join parts. For instance, a leg to rail assembly like I've got here on this small project, plenty strong for what I'm doing here, and fairly easy to do, but what you do have to be careful about is the glue application. It's really such a good fit between the dowel and the hole, that if you get overzealous with the glue, if you just pour it in there, what can happen, is that it simply won't allow the dowel to seed in there. You get hydraulic pressure acting against the dowel, preventing the joint from closing. Or even worse, what can happen is as you are determined to close that thing, squeeze it with a clamp, there can be so much pressure, it actually cracks your material.

So here's a great way that I've found to get a nice uniform coat of glue inside that dowel hole. I'm gonna start by just getting a puddle of glue here on a piece of scrap. Then I'm gonna use a q-tip in the glue, it's gonna give me great control over getting the glue inside that hole, all the way to the bottom, a nice uniform film, painted on the inside of the dowel hole. As soon as I have one hole lined, one set of holes lined, I'm gonna go ahead and insert those dowels, and then we'll just keep working our way all the way around the stool. If it's a little bit open like that, don't worry about it, just allow the clamps to close it.

But now you can go ahead and line the next set of holes, till you got your whole project assembled. Q-tip makes a great way to make sure you have just the right amount of glue inside these dowel holes.