i recently purchased a General International 15″ thickness planer and have had nothing but problems. i spent a few hours calibrating it and could never get rid of snipe at both ends on every pass. so i called in the tech from the tool store. he came out and spent 4 hours on it and could never get rid of the snipe either. 2 days later he came back with the rep for general and they together spent another 2 hours and never got rid of the snipe. thats when they decided to tell me that its just the way big planers work they all do it, including the $15000 machines. now i find that strange since my portable delta has performed great right out of the box. so i returned to the store and 2 more sales men told me yes thats the nature of the beast. to satisfy my curriosity i upgraded it anyway to the 15″ with the motor below. after calibrating that one i still get snipe. my question is, does everyone really have this problem? having to make all boards 6″ long and cutting off the snipe? i find it hard to believe that a $2000 ‘professional’ piece of equipment is way out performed by a $500 hobby machine.
Tmaxxx
Urban Workshop Ltd
Vancouver B.C.
cheers. Ill buy.
Replies
In recent months I have been getting a lot of email about snipe problems with a wide range of planers and found that few people are supporting the wood in or out of the machines. Adding a work support on both the infeed and outfeed sides to prevent the weight of the board from torquing the end upwards into the knives seems to "cure" the problem in a large number of cases.
I put up a story on this at the link below that has drawn a surprising number of emails from folks who say they ended their snipe problems. Take a look, it might help, and its free!
http://www.newwoodworker.com/plnrsuprt.html
Tom Hintz
Because there is always more to learn!
tmaxxx,
I'd get snipe with my Delta unless it was supported. One of my hardwood suppliers has a huge milling operation and I often see snipe on their boards. An easy cure is to place a piece of melamine with a cleat on the underside on the bed of the planner....you could build a torsion box if long lenght was required.
THintz ---You are absolutly correct about support.It is very simple physics.
I've tried the stand method with varying degrees of success. Most of the larger, floor standing machines have a fixed cutterhead with a moveable table, the portable machines just the opposite. Setting up stands for these portable machines should be a once-per-job activity, but machines with movable tables, the stands quickly become out of alignment with the infeed/outfeed tables. Furthermore, if you get a board that is bowed down slightly, it will have a tendency to knock the outfeed stand over.
I have a slightly different method that's rather effective. I lift slightly on the board as I feed it in and tail it off. After a while you get a feel for how much it takes and usually eliminates the snipe. One note, however, on short boards, be careful not to get your fingers pinched in between the board and the rollers on the infeed/outfeed tables if your planer is equipped as such.
The other thing that seems to help is to feed your lumber in end-to-end. In theory, based on the above mentioned article this shouldn't help, but in my experience it does.
-Kurt
They just don't know how to adjust it. I've been rebuilding machines for over 25 years and none of my machines have snipe. Keep the bedrolls set at a few thousandths above the table and you should be good to go.
thank you all for your input but its not a support problem. as we were setitng up a new machine, we were only using a 2 ft piece.
this is not a portable machine. what im tring to find out is, on industrial machines is snipe on every piece par for the bussiness. to me i cant see a mfg company cutting 3 inches off the tails of every board because of this. i know snipe happens now and then because of poor suppport but this is every board, both ends.
2 techs with many years experience cant get rid of it. After 8 hours of them trying they dedcided to tell me thats the way these machines work. Well then why did they spend so much time trying. They set bed roller up, down , filed edges, various infeed and outfeed hights and pressures using machined set up blocks and feeler guages, adjusted the chip breaker. and still no luck.
if anyone out there has this type of machine let me know if yours is snipe free and how did you get it that way?
sorry if i sound upset but this has cost me 2 grand and has been a problem for 2 weeks now and im incredibly frusterated.Tmaxxx
Urban Workshop Ltd
Vancouver B.C.
cheers. Ill buy.
What are the bed rollers set at? Setting them no more than .003" above the table should be enough and keep the table waxed regularly.
"I have a slightly different method that's rather effective. I lift slightly on the board as I feed it in and tail it off. After a while you get a feel for how much it takes and usually eliminates the snipe. One note, however, on short boards, be careful not to get your fingers pinched in between the board and the rollers on the infeed/outfeed tables if your planer is equipped as such."I learned this technique, too. My Delta 22-560 is not prone to snipe as was its predecessor, but I do it anyway. I also remove very little wood on the last pass. In a production situation, these may be intolerable procedures. The tech rep's actions make me think that you may have made a bad choice of machine. Maybe you should try to work some kind of exchange with the dealer.It does my wallet good to know of your problem. I know that I didn't waste $1700 or so. On the other hand, I sincerely sympathize.Cadiddlehopper
I have a woodmaster II 18" made in Kansas City, MO. Since I started it up in1989 I have never had that problem. I even had to switch the in and out feed rollers , because a little wore , This machine can be used as a sander and I only get snips when the board is a little twisted, and it told in the manul NOT to run anything shorter than 12" , But if it's shorter , I run it on an angle.
The BEST investment I ever made, as for shop equipment.
Building furniture to become Heirlooms.
Grand Rapids, MI
One of the reasons that there is more snipe on the larger planers is because of the distance between the feed rollers and cutterhead. They are larger than those of the portable and can't be placed closer. Therefore the wood has less support and due to the larger diameter cutterhead having more blade engaged in the board while cutting, resulting in greater uplift on the unsupported wood. (Put a ruler over the edge of a desk and pluck it. Lots of vibration with long overhang. Less with short.)
Better designed machines have pressure bars at the cutterhead to help hold down the wood. If your machine has them then maybe they are not set correctly. Return the machine and try a different brand or at least try some other brands in the showroom (or at there customers shops)to see if they are any better.
Keeping the blades sharp, and "uplifting" when feeding in and out will help. Industry copes by planing the boards as long as possible before cutting to length. And by using sheet goods.
All planers do not snipe. It may be that all the new far east imports do. I have a Powermatic Model 180, it does not snipe & I do not support the wood on the outfeed side. For a planer to not snipe, it should have a pressure bar between the cutterhead & outfeed roller. The pressure bar is set a few hundreds of an inch above the low point of the knives. It keeps the wood pressed against the table after it leaves the infeed roll. The new planers that I have looked at do not have a pressure bar. They just depend on the outfeed roller to hold the wood down & as many of you know, it does not do a very good job.
T, you are right, it is not true, and those salesmen have some mythical beast in mind. Snipe is eliminated on any machine, beastial or otherwise, by proper adjustment of the bed rollers, correct pressure on the infeed and outfeed pressure bars, and for long stock adequate support in and especially out. If there is snipe on the outfeed only and you are only feeding shortish stock then the prime suspect is the bed roller on the out end.For hard woods there should be less projection of the bed rollers than that required for soft woods, but you can kick off with something like five thou or so, and adjust down from that.
For another approach you could try a false table: if you still have snipe then the pressure bars are at the wrong height and/or there is not enough pressure on the springs (if it is that type).
It's a machine- it must work for you. The salesmen are salesmen. These problems are usually solved in the morning.
Tmaxxx,
As I read your post, my blood boiled. I don't care what your machine is: saw, planer, jointer or what. If I had a store rep out and he spent 4 hours with a problem and the FACTORY REP was out and spent more than 5 minutes and ended up telling me what those two told you, I would have roared like a lion. What the hell right do they have--experts they were--to spend 6 hours trying to correct a problem and then finally telling you that that was the nature of the beast! They CAN't know that that they all do it. If they did, they would not have spent 6 hrs on the problem, unless they only had a week's experience and just ended up assuming that that was normal!!!
Let me tell you, I also have a 12 1/2 inch Delta planer that has NEVER had snipe. Even with the infeed table bent down somewhat, it almost always does an excellent job. I know that you should to do the things that the others talk about here to improve your chances, but after doing them, you should expect no significant snipe.
I hope that you get better answers to your problem. Your type of experience is where I fax the heck out of the CEO to get some attention, and believe me I have AND I have gotten attention by doing that. There is absolutely no excuse for the series of events that happened here.
ahh a man that understands my frusteration. i was so unsatisfied with 2 weeks of B.S. i returned the second machine and built a 8' table out of 3/4 wood topped with cutting board material. i ran a 2x9x9' jatoba through it. rough and planed it never even paused a bit. still get the odd snipe but only at 1 end. $200 bucks was alot cheaper than $2000. so i used that money i saved and bought the JessEm router table lift system. that took aaaaallll my pain away. i wish they made a planer.Tmaxxx
Urban Workshop Ltd
Vancouver B.C.
cheers. Ill buy.
2 days later he came back with the rep for general and they together spent another 2 hours and never got rid of the snipe. thats when they decided to tell me that its just the way big planers work they all do it, including the $15000 machines.
LOL.. Not at you! It is not funny..
I was in marketing/service and had to do that on several occasions.. On Million + machines.. Yes I'm still alive! I have no idea why.. Folks are so nice.. Even if pissed!
No all planers don't snipe, and I laugh at people that say they do. I've ran many planers, from a delta 12.5, Dewalt 12.5, Delta 15, Olivers, Parks 20, Powermatic 225, Rockwell 18, Delta Invicta 24, and no machines sniped. The larger industrial machines could run all day droping out feeds on the floor and never snipe. Its all in the set up. The generals could have a quality issue that does'nt allow the out feed roller to apply sufficent pressure to keep the stock down on the table, or the chip breaker is too close to the cutterhead.
I like the Delta 13-15 design, but QC is important, along with setup.
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