Replies

1. 
   GW52 | Jun 04, 2008 10:48pm | #1

   Pete,

   Are you supporting the wood on both ends of the planer? If the wood planks are heavy this could be the solution. I had a small 12 inch and it sniped both ends of the plank and then after reading some tips in a magazine try feeding boards one right after another, with the ends touching. It helped in my case or try using some pine in front and behind some of the better woods when planning that way the pine get the snipe and you better wood doesn't.

   Greg

1. 
   PeterThomson | Jun 05, 2008 02:47am | #2

   Yep, supporting the wood on both sides, in and out (sketch--a poor one!--attached).  Feeding consecutive boards end-to-end (touching) helps, but I'm not fast enough to keep up with doing more than two boards at a shot... so the last board gets some snipe.

   The "continous" board support (one piece infeed/outfeed table, passing over the bed rollers) has helped quite a bit, still getting snipe though.  There must be a way to not need this "one piece" system, darned if I know what it is though!  :-)

    

   P.

    

   
1. 
   polarsea1 | Jun 05, 2008 05:00am | #3

   I've lowered my bed rollers below the surface of my planer bed and it almost eleminated snipe. If I was surfacing a lot of rough lumber I'd raise them up again.

    

2. 
   hammer1 | Jun 05, 2008 05:22am | #4

   Planers snipe due to their geometry. Look at the drawing you posted. You are missing two key components, the bed rollers and the pressure bar. As the wood enters, it is held by three points, the pressure bar, the upper infeed roller and the bed infeed roller. Planers seldom snipe at the beginning of the board.After the board passes by the front rollers and pressure bar, it is only held by two points, the upper outfeed roller and the outfeed bed roller. As the board end exists the pressure bar, it has a tendency to snap up into the knives. To avoid this, people hold up on the far end of the board, in essence, forcing it down to the table to prevent the jump. Another trick is to back up the board with another board, end to end with no gap between. This way the pressure bar won't be released.When holding up on the board, if the bed rollers are too high, you can get the opposite of a snipe. If the bed rollers are too low, the planer won't feed rough stock very well. There is a balance between the height of the bed rollers and the amount of spring on the pressure bar. These should all be adjustable on your planer. Play with them equally on each side and you should be able to get a good balance. The pressure bar is a little tricky and you might not get it right the first few times.If the planer is set up correctly, holding up on a single board should eliminate the snipe, most of the time. There will always be times that it happens. By planing the board before you have cut it to it's final length, you can cut off the snipe. It's not unusual to have to waste a few inches, often, there may be a split that gets removed anyway. In busy shops, we just figure on cutting off the snipe rather than getting upset and trying to make planing perfect end to end. With limited and expensive material, a back up piece and holding up usually does the trick. I would not advise tipping up, in or outfeed tables. It will put excess pressure on the knife head bearings and rollers. It's always possible on an older machine that these may be worn and no fiddling with adjustments will cure the problem. You will completely eliminate snipe and frustration if you just plan ahead to cut it off.Beat it to fit / Paint it to match

2. 
   SgianDubh | Jun 05, 2008 10:37am | #5

   Peter, in over thirty years working in the furniture industry day in and day out I've yet to come across one of these mythical thickness planers that never snipe. There a endless legends out there about these wonderful snipe free machines, but no-one I know in the industry has ever come across one, and I know hundreds of people in this business.

   Still, as hammer has discussed there are some bits of geometry to understand and a machine that's properly set up will largely eliminate the phenomenom, but in my experience you'll never completely eliminate it. I find it's quite common to feed ten planks through, and nine will be near enough perfect, and the tenth ends up with snipe at both ends. A bowed board is more likely to snipe than a flat one, but you just never know for sure when it will occur.

   Industry standard practice, or at least the particular furniture industry standard practice I've always been professionally involved with, is to cut the snipe off, so we always allow for it. Slainte.

   Richard Jones Furniture

3. 
   cigarmike | Jun 06, 2008 04:01pm | #6

   I have never been able to completely eliminate snipe no matter what kind of planer is in use. Benchtop planer, old Parks planer, my current jointer/planer combo. Each leaves some measure of snipe either at the leading or trailing ends of a board.

   My method of dealing with this is to leave the rough ends in place until after the jointing and planing is done. In other words, the sometimes uneven or split ends are left in place until after machining. Then I crosscut the splits and uneven ends of the board, which takes care of the sniped part.

   Good luck and watch those fingers.

1. 
   PeterThomson | Jun 06, 2008 07:11pm | #7

   Thanks for your comments and feedback everyone, much appreciated.  It looks like I've tried what I'm supposed to try and will have to live with it.  (Which is OK, as long as I plan for snipe before trimming to final dimension.)

   The 15" planer is "BFI" for me, and a blast to use.  On my last pass before glue up, I'll see if I can get a couple helpers to I can run everything through end-to-end (like a line of elephants, come to think of it!).

   This forum is great.  I've always received good direction and comments from those who reply to my questions, and learn as much from reading forum threads as I do from the classic texts and magazine articles.  Much appreciated!!  My only regret is that I don't know enough (yet) to help others out more.

   Thanks again,

   Pete

4. 
   BrianDerr | Jun 07, 2008 08:26am | #8

   I don't use tables or supports on either side of the planer, and if i pay attention, and am not running a too-thin piece, can get zero snipe every time. When I feed it in I just concentrate on holding up a few pounds MORE than the weight of the board, and again on the outfeed end. The critical part is that first or last 8-10 inches when only one roller is pressing down on the workpiece. You have to leverage the free end of the board DOWN onto the table with positive pressure while it's between rollers, without so much pressure that you actually lift the other end of the board off the table (but almost). It's a matter of feel that I don't think could be recreated with tables. With the board on a table, you couldn't, or at least you shouldn't, get a hand under the board to aply this extra bit of preasure, and 'clamp' the machine end of the board to the table when it needs it. Sometimes I like to use two hands--one pulling up away from the machine and one pushing down closer to the machine to create a sort of isometric which makes it easier for me to controll the preassure steadily. With thin, flexible work, you really would have to exaggerate this technique so that the machine end doesn't just spring up after it leaves the infeed roller. I also think it helps to feed in at a diagonal (and commit!) and straighten out during the run.

   A good question: if infeed and outfeed tables are long and perfectly coplanar with the planer bed, what in the world would cause the end of the board to spring up even 1/64th between rollers and snipe? I don't know. The vibration of the machine? Lifting action of the cutters? Internal preassures in the wood? But I think that even if I set up everything the best I possibly could, I would still get a tiny, tiny bit of snipe that way. I perfer zero snipe.

   I've owned two planers--Delta 12+1/2" and Jet 13"--and have never adjusted the rollers on either of them. Not trying to brag, I just think that your problem may not be mechanical. I guess I've been thinking about sharing this technique for a while, and wondering how many do something similar. I acknowledge that there is plenty about these machines that I do not know . . . hey, lets not forget the easiest way of preventing snipe--work your stock eight inches long and cut it off!

   Brian

1. 
   polarsea1 | Jun 07, 2008 09:35pm | #12

   I don't think either of the planers you mentioned have bed rollers which is probably one reason you get no snipe.

1. 
   BrianDerr | Jun 08, 2008 07:57am | #13

   Not familiar with bed rollers, but do think that many operators without them do complain of snipe, so is my technique not a valid one? Don't tell me the only reason why I don't get snipe is the abesence of bed rollers. Brian

1. 
   polarsea1 | Jun 08, 2008 08:07am | #14

   No, I'd say you probably have good technique but bed rollers make it more difficult and that's a fact - I've had two each, with and without, the planers without rollers sniped less. 

1. 
   BrianDerr | Jun 08, 2008 08:38am | #15

   Okay, thanks for that. I can only imagine the twisted ways that bed rollers pushing UP on the workpiece would contribute to sniped ends. Really I don't even want to imagine it, though I guess they would take a great deal of friction off the table. But damn how large of pieces are these (bed rolling) guys working? Don't mean to talk your ear off or anything.Brian

2. 
   PeterThomson | Jun 18, 2008 09:41pm | #16

   Update....

   Went back to the drawing board and it's working great now, little to no snipe.  I dropped the bed rollers down to flush and it made a big difference... Especially once I completely removed the infeed/outfeed tables.  The bed rollers were only up a couple thou before, surprised at the difference it makes.  No snipe on short (3') pieces, bit of snipe for long (7') pieces but still much less than before. 

   Eliminating the infeed/outfeed supports made the biggest difference it seems, having much better luck doing it by feel.  With enough patience, I would think that a "perfect" infeed/outfeed system could be set up eventually.  I'm not that patient though, so to heck with it.  The simpler way works for me, so I'm sticking with it.

   Thanks for the advice everyone, much appreciated!

    

   Pete

3. 
   BrianDerr | Jun 19, 2008 07:54am | #17

   Hey, thanks for not getting annoyed at me pushing my system on you. Glad you've found some measure of planing happiness. Remember that for longer (heavier) pieces you need to provide additional infeed/outfeed up preasure. Imagine the total weight of the board (level) and add three pounds up. You can't do this with infeed/outfeed tables because you can't get your fingers underneath to add that extra three pounds while the end of the piece is between rollers.Brian

   Edited 6/19/2008 12:57 am ET by BrianDerr

5. 
   philip | Jun 07, 2008 09:29am | #9

   Peter,
   Snipe of the size you describe is not acceptable , even with the type of machine you have-by this I mean a machine of comparatively big capacity but not matching beef i.e it is light weight, with a short table and flimsy pressure bar and tension spring system.I am not denigrating them , but they have shortcomings engineered into them.
   So I think that you can get improvement and you should carry out adjustments in a logical order preferably as per the operator manual and this needs to be done accurately ie by use of dial indicator.
   Are you able to see any tipping movement of the bed or lower table when a board enters and leaves the machine- are those column sleeves a good fit on the vertical arms? Is the bed securely clamped? In fact, does that machine even have the means to clamp the lower table/bed?
   I assume you are surfacing at least one face of each board before you put it through the planer? (To me this was always a given-until I came to New Zealand and was amazed to see that it is not).
   If you can operate the archives you will find the subject well flogged- some folk lost their tempers over it and even stomped off into the sunset never to be heard of again.
   My experience in industry has been quite different to Richard's. But the machines we used were heavy weight. Snipe was not something to be accepted as inevitable- if it became evident fingers were pointed at the maintenance man or operators. In a production environment cutting off bits due to snipe was bad news and no production manager was keen to add to the waste factor either, neither was the factory manager going to run machines which @3ed up his timber....
   So to sum up I think you need to re-visit your set up procedure and be sure that you are carrying out the adjustments correctly. Admittedly this type of machine is more likely to produce snipe but not of the order you describe. Have another go at it, but if all else fails you could ask Ray Pine to post his own unique cure for the problem.
   Philip Marcou

   
   

   ---

   Edited 6/7/2008 3:14 am by philip

1. 
   SgianDubh | Jun 07, 2008 10:58am | #10

   That's interesting philip that your experience is so different to mine. My experience is gleaned from a wide range of machines from big old over and under 500- 600 mm Robinsons and Wadkins mainly, along with one or two of the old Delta/Rockwell 18" machines and, currently, 500 mm Felder dedicated thicknessers down to the little bench top machines like Ryobi and DeWalt.

   None of the biggest machines I've operated and/or set-up are what I'd call continuous use heavy industrial duty machines that operate in mills knocking out thousands of metres of mouldings and the like at a time. Still, I've never experienced a thicknesser that never sniped, with the emphasis on never. It's my experience that every machine can be set up to almost never snipe, but in the end they all do at least sometimes, and some more than others, especially the ones that come new at a bargain price.

   Even the pre- machined timber and standard mouldings I come across from those mass producers with their £250,000 computer controlled and set multi-head machines show sniped ends often enough to know that they can't completely eliminate it.

   Those sniped bits I see on purchased mouldings must be the bits that get the setters, operators, or maintenace boys in trouble that you mentioned in your post, ha, ha. Slainte.   Richard Jones Furniture

1. 
   philip | Jun 07, 2008 02:07pm | #11

   Yes, yes Old China, I suspect you don't believe me but I am not about to push it to the wall....
   The machinery I was mainly referring to was mostly SCM- the green ones , quite dissimilar to their pallid cousins (Mini-Max). I am not saying they never sniped-I am saying it was not taken as a given. It was never an issue, just something that did not happen very often and would be sorted without any fuss as a matter of course. There were also some Pinhieros and Stettons.
   Never used one but I would be surprised if that Felder was a habitual sniper....It's German , you know.
   Then was an item called the Giulliet (spelling may be wrong) Automatic Straightening and Thicknessing Planer- NEVER saw any snipe there. I remember when it was installed new and the then factory manager ponced about all over it as if it was his first grand daughter.
   Then there IS my own Dominion combination that does not snipe- but that is because I am quite mad and don't mind spending some time now and again tweaking it: since I am the only user I understand the old bittich.Philip Marcou