Dealing with glue squeeze out for finishes

[Dan Karachio]

A little new here to making real furniture and the area I struggle with most is glue squeeze out and finishing. If I watch Norm, it never seems to be a problem and he always wipes away the joint with what looks like a damp rag. Others say this is exactly the wrong thing to do. Some use blue tape. Others finish their work before assembly. So, I ask you, the gurus of all things finishing, how do you manage and avoid problems with glue squeeze out in achieving a nice finish?

[JohnT Fitzgerald]

I have used the damp rag method before. It looks clean until you finish it, and then you realize just how much glue you smeared over the wood.

another option is to let it dry 'as is' and scrape it off later. or let it skin over and scoop it out with something like a straw .

The blue tape method works well but is more labor intensive. Dry fit the pieces and blue tape right up to any/all joints; then disassemble and glue up; any squeeze out will just ooze onto the tape.

[Steve Schoene]

Just remember, you never have tto be surprised by glue squeeze out when finishing. Just make it a regular routine to wet down the surface with naphtha or the like and the glue spots will be instantly revealed.

[Dan Karachio]

Thanks! I'll try the naphtha trick.

[Chris Fournier]

I may seem obvious but your squeeze out problems start with your glue application.

Are you using too much glue perhaps? This would be my first area of concern.

I prefer to leave the squeeze out until the joint is set and then I use a card scraper etc to remove the leather hard bead.

Any missed glue makes for finishing nightmares especially if you are doing colour work. This you know of course!

[glenn bradley]

I do several things depending on the joint. Tight spots will get pre-finished, some areas get the blue tape, some I cut a relief in a mating surface to catch the glue before it squeezes out. Mostly I try to use an amount of glue that gets just a bit of squeeze out and give it 30 - 40 minutes to get partly set. I then use a chisel or other sharp instrument to pare it off. The chisel method's success varies with the open pore quality of your species.

[Prashun Patel]

I've tried all manner of masking and prefinishing. Honestly, the best for me has been the wet rag. Just rub it and you'll get almost all of it. Use the naptha or alcohol trick when dry, and do any necessary sanding. But most of the time, I find that unnecessary if I've been diligent in the ragging.

When the drops are BIG, I wait for an hour and then pop off the mess with a spatula, and then wet rag it with warm water.

IMHO, glue squeezeout is the exception to the rule: an ouce of protection is worth a pound of cure. Cleanup ain't that bad.

[Dan Karachio]

thanks everyone. my problems aren't serious, I really just didn't know the best ways to deal with it. again, some of these tv shows show glue everywhere, then a perfect finish. don't get me wrong, I like many of these shows, but I wish more would spend time on these types of things. Tommy Mac had a nice show on finishing (watching it now as I type on the iPad).

[Neal Clayton]

another benefit of film building finishes, such as shellac, in lieu of penetrating stains...

they build a film over glue or fillers or any other residue just like they do over the wood.

[Jim Becker]

Are you using too much glue perhaps? This would be my first area of concern.

I prefer to leave the squeeze out until the joint is set and then I use a card scraper etc to remove the leather hard bead.

Good advise here. I rarely wipe with a damp towel; rather, I let the glue set-up for about an hour and then scrape off any excess. This is particularly important if you are using a more open grain species of wood as wiping can get a lot of glue in the pores, making it impossible to remove. Scraping off squeeze out while it's not fully hard avoids this. (I use a type of paint scraper for this, rather than my card scrapers)

Where I will use blue painter's tape is on inside corners where glue would be difficult to remove after the fact.

And pay attention to where you put the glue in a joint. While you want it "wet to the edge" for full coverage, you don't want gobs of the stuff near the edge in any way. I try to hold back well from an edge while applying the glue from the container and use a small acid brush to get just enough toward the edge to wet it and do the job.