You shouldn't need a lot of moisture to kickoff Gorilla Glue and its analogs. The moisture merely starts off the process, acting as a catalyst. I just breath on the joint before clamping up and it has ever failed.

: Thanks for the thoughts.. the trouble with 1/4 inch dowels is that
: the frame is mainly 1/4" timber, so the dowels would be
: guaranteed to blow out the sides.

: After a bit of rudimentary testing, I went with the 3mm bamboo
: skewers. The glue seems to stick to bamboo okay, and I solved
: the moisture for the polyurethane glue issue by dunking the
: dowels before putting glue on them and jamming them in the
: holes. I found that if I stopped part way through the insertion,
: that was it. It had to be done in one motion otherwise the
: dowels would bind in the holes never to move again.

: The frame feels more rigid now which can only be a good thing.

: I'll post some pics once the frame is done.