All good ideas. Wooden coffee stirrers, which look like popsicle sticks but narrower and thinner, can be useful too, depending on the size of your mortise.
All good ideas. Wooden coffee stirrers, which look like popsicle sticks but narrower and thinner, can be useful too, depending on the size of your mortise.
Chuck Taylor
A toothbrush works pretty well too.
Sharp solves all manner of problems.
I use a set of those gun cleaning brushes. They come in several sizes and work on dowel/Domino holes perfectly.
I use acid brushes most of the time. For the 1/4" mortises I'll usual flatten the acid brush with a hammer to let me get it in the mortise more easily without making a mess.
I make through tenons. I use a 10" long pine wedge freehand on the band saw, almost as wide as the mortise, tapering to a sharp edge ant the glue end. I can dip it in glue, smear the mortise walls and shoulders, and have enough left for the tenon, cope, and shoulder. after the mortise and tenons are all glued, I toss the stick in a can of water while I clamp. I wipe the stick off after assembly, before gluing up the next pieces.
The wood is free, and there's nothing to throw out.
If the mortise is small I've used Q-tips. Slightly larger I use a small paint brush.
For some reason acid brushes never really clicked for me (always seemed messy and getting glue around the edges I didnt want). I have some longer wooden 'q-tip' type swabs I use. Often I break the tip off which just makes them a small round stick. But I dont really see some fiber from the swab being a big deal.
Often used is a small screwdriver I have. It is a bit longer than a standard screwdriver. The flat on the end is good for buttering up with glue which I can then rotate and spread the full depth in one pass. Just wipe to clean it since its metal (if it dries on there it peels off easy).
As I think about it the same things I use to spread glue are what I use to mix two part epoxy in small batches.
Thanks all for the quick reply. It seems like I have not missed out on any ingenious solutions. It's just common sense. I have made a few paddles for the mortices and the plastic paddles will be fine for the grooves, which are shallower.
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I trim the acid brushes so they are not too wide or have loose hairs. The wood popsicle sticks to scoop a lot of glue quickly - you can get bags of these at hobby stores.
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Having been in the pipe trades I buy the acid brushes by the box. The grandkids know where the box is so I go through them pretty quickly. We always called them flux brushes. They are best stored next to the capacitor.
Acid Brush users: hit the well of the brush, where bristles are cramped in place, with medium - thick CA glue. Shot of activator and in a few moments, you have a brush that no longer sheds.
I just received the large and small silicone glue brushes from Rockler, so no insights on those yet. Just trying another method, maybe saving a fistful of acid brushes going into the landfill each year. It all adds up.
As for the initial question, I keep buckets of thin rip drop-off waste from table saw, which serve to spread glue, custom shaping ends for all manner of tasks, including the glue, but also wood fillers for hard to reach areas. If you were talking domino mortices, I like to slightly round edges of a flat stick to assure full coverages of the round ends of mortice.
jeff
Long wooden coffee stirrers and little brushes. The brushes come in ⅜ and ¼.
Regards,
Tom
Wood stir sticks (coffee stirrers) for small mortises and wood tongue depressors. Get them in a 1000 pack. Work like spatulas mentioned above. Drip glue in mortise and pull it up the sides with the sticks. Super fast.
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