Cleaning up PL ooze

[Mark Coward]

I stumbled on a pretty helpful method to clean the ooze from a wood joint. Don't know about others, but after glueing & clamping I invariably run my finger along the joint at various spots to make sure it's flush before driving fasteners. Even running the minimal bead, there's a bit of ooze - which I'd rather have to be sure it's strong and airtight. I don't like wearing plastic gloves, and even if I do it ends up smearing the ooze over the wood after "fingering" it.

Mostly I'd been using bits of scrap wood to scrape off excess, which also leaves smeared glue. On a recent project I was in a hurry, had a lot of scrap plastic bagging laying around and started using it to wipe off my hands. The glue sticks to the plastic better than it does to a rag or paper towel. So I tried it on the ooze lines, and came up with this method.

Take a strip of plastic sheeting, most anything will work, wax paper is good too. Grab one end of of this strip with one hand, and right behind this hand place a finger of your other hand, folding the plastic back so your finger is sort of encased, with the length of the strip hanging. Now the tricky part, you press this finger against one end of the glue line, then start pulling the strip so that it's sliding underneath your finger, in the same direction that you're moving down the glue line - but pulling it out at an angle, away from the wood so it pulls the glue off. I also use the other fingers of this hand to guide the strip. Slowly move your finger down the joint, in the same direction that you're sliding. What you want is the plastic to be sliding out faster than your finger is moving, pulling the glue off. You'll probably run out of strip on most joints, just fold it over with the glue inside and do it again.

When you get it just right, the joint will look clean without smears and will not be tacky to the touch. At least for something like an 1/8" - 1/4" ooze line, if you have big globs running out it's not going to work that well. I don't have this perfected, but I think it has the potential to save a good bit of time in clean up and prepping for finish.

[WB]

Very interesting.

But, the PL will still expand and leave a joint that needs to be cleaned up?

[Mark Coward]

Very interesting.

But, the PL will still expand and leave a joint that needs to be cleaned up?

Yes, it will expand a bit but when it's a tight fitting joint there's very little, pretty much a "hairline". Mostly it helps keep the majority of goo off of my hands, elbows, clothes, tools, etc. while I'm working on something.

I tend to use a lot of clamps with the Auroco ply because of warp. I have to gradually work some edges flush, a little at a time adding or moving clamps as needed. This is harder & messier to do with glue smeared on it. The project I've been working on is a couple of chest-of-drawers, so I especially wanted to keep things as clean as possible. The plastic lets me thread it around and between clamps. I also found that the regular plastic bags from grocery or other stores work well, and by always keeping your hand inside and glue on the outside you can rotate it around and use it many times.

PL can leave a residue that soaks into the wood. It can be hard to sand it off completely, and any spots will show under some finishes.

[netwerks]

+1 on plastic walmart bags.