Glue Clean up

I assume that the plywood and solids are different species since you stained the plywood, is that right? I don’t have a lot of experience with shellac, but I’m not sure if 1 coat is enough to keep the glue from penetrating into the plywood. When I glue solid wood to plywood I usually make sure the solid is slightly proud of the plywoood and sand it down after the glue sets so it’s flush. I guess you can’t really do that if you’ve already stained and shellaced the plywood.

Since the glue you used is probably water soluble, you might try using a damp cloth and rub it on the dried glue and see if it’ll soften enough to come up. I don’t know if it’ll work but it’s worth a try. If you try to sand it off, you’ll probably sand through the stain and that’ll be the end of that.

In the future, if you have to stain before assembly, you might mask off the plywood right where the glue joint is. Also, don’t wait to clean off the squeeze-out unless you can sand the joint after it dries. Another solution might be to avoid stains altogether when you have to glue plywood to solid wood.

-- Alan Carter, www.alancarterstudio.com

IMHO cleaning the glue squeeze-out using damp towel is not good idea, because water open the wood pore and let the glue penetrates deeper in the wood. Use dry towel while the glue is still wet. Let it dry and scrape it.

-- masrol, kuala lumpur, MY.