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How to Remove Dried Glue Squeeze-out

Coming and Going

Even though removing dried glue squeeze-out is a common task, it’s no picnic. But, as you can see in the photos above, a chisel is the perfect tool for the task.

When glue has dried in a corner, like the drawer you see above left, try a bevel-down grip to “pop” the glue out. The bevel acts as a “safety” to keep the cutting edge from gouging the workpiece.

Squeeze-out on edge joints calls for a different approach. Here, you want to hold the chisel nearly vertical and pull it along the glue line (inset photo). This scraping action quickly shears off dried glue.

One more thing: To avoid having to spend a lot of time resharpening my best chisels, I bought an extra, inexpensive chisel just for this job.