Reducing Planer Snipe

You can also double side tape skinny strips on the sides that are longer than the board and the snipe will be on the sacrificial strips.

-- Bondo Gaposis

I adjusted the in feed and out feed tables with a straight edge so they were dead on even with the tables and have had no trouble with snipe since.

-- Jerry

I have used the skinny strip technique. Can’t do it for the cutting boards though because I like them as wide as the planer can handle.

With my old Delta Planer that had a significant snipe problem I found that feeding a piece of narrow scrap, the same thickness as my good board, and then starting the good board into the planer before the narrow piece finished being planed kept the snipe on the narrow board. I did the same when the trailing end of the good board was about to enter the planer. I would put another narrow board of the same thickness into the planer before the good board finished. The good board would be snipe free, and the two narrow boards would have the snipe. Planers with two or three posts have the most problems with snipe. It is caused by the ability of the cutter head to rock slightly as the feed rollers ride up onto and down off of the board being planed. The cutter head tilts slightly, causing the cutter to dig deeper into the ends of the board.

I replaced my Delta planer with a DeWalt 735 which has four posts and a locking design that prevents this type of cutter head movement, and the snipe on my boards is now almost non-existent. Where the snipe line would be there is sometimes a faint line, but a few swipes of 150 grit paper will completely eliminate this line.

I gave the Delta to my son-in-law, along with the training in how to minimize snipe when using it.

Charley