How to Clean Glue Squeeze-Out

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 okay, 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. 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.