About a month ago I glued up the first planter of a planter-bench. I used Titebond Polyurethane glue. It was the first time I had used this glue, but I considered it to be better for outdoor construction than Titebond II. The glue-up of that first planter went quite well; I had my friend Mike Litzkow over to help me and we glued up the entire four-sided planter in one session. Not having used the glue before, I was sorta worried about the squeeze-out. Because of this I removed the glue squeeze out within an hour or so of when it was glued together. The squeeze-out just "popped" off easily, and I could even use my carbide scraper, which has a "heel" to it so that it won't "dig into" the wood like a sheet-steel scraper would, to scrape off the squeeze-out. Wonderful.
I glued up two panel assemblies for the second planter earlier this week. After the above experience, I wasn't worried about leaving the panels sit for a bit before removing the squeeze-out. Ooops. I left it sitting two days and went to remove the glue squeeze out today before assembling the planter in-total. Big Mistake. After the glue squeeze-out sets completely it is a lot more difficult to remove. I had to slice the squeeze-out off the wood with a sharp chisel. I couldn't use the scraper,(except for some cleanup, since the squeeze out was of a much stiffer consistency than it was before. The squeeze out had also managed to impregnate the wood surrounding it, instead of just sitting on the surface. This leaves some slight stains on the wood, which I hope will should sand out. The squeeze out was still manageable, but no where near as nice to deal with as compared to the 1 hour old squeeze out. I think it took as long to do both sides of one panel as it took to do the entire exterior of the 1st planter.
Fortunately, gluing up in assemblies meant I didn't have to try removing this bad squeeze out from the inside of the 2nd planter. I also tried reducing the amount of glue I used from the first planter, so I didn't have as much squeeze out. I think I will go back to a bit excess of glue, and removing it early; it leaves no mark, the joint definitely has enough glue, and it is easy and fast to remove.
I highly recommend removing Titebond Polyurethane glue squeeze-out within an hour or so of gluing. In that time frame it comes of quite easily and doesn't leave any glue stains on the wood that it touches.