Thread: snipe control

I get a bit of snipe on my dewalt and as far as I can make out the tables are as well set up as I can get. I am at the stage of living with it doing things like feeding end to end and keeping things a tad over length as work arounds. Anyhow that will be something I can try. Thanks for posting.
Regards
John

Originally Posted by orraloon

I get a bit of snipe on my dewalt and as far as I can make out the tables are as well set up as I can get. I am at the stage of living with it doing things like feeding end to end and keeping things a tad over length as work arounds. Anyhow that will be something I can try. Thanks for posting.
Regards
John

With the dewalt units being a favourite of the US market how the snip occurs on those is well documented by youtube warriors, but it seems that the design dewalt has nearly ensures snipe will happen with the supposed pivoting action of the rollers around the cutting head or rather the cutter being pivoted down when one roller engaged.

It seems though that the greater majority of 4 post lunch box thicknessers have snipe issues with longer pieces of wood pivoting themselves up into the head due to the weight of the board hanging off the tables both on the infeed and outfeed. Stop the board pivoting as per the OP then you stop snipe. Have the cutter assembly pivot down when only one roller engaged is nearly impossible to stop.

my old ancient GMC 2 blade unit has been very carefully adjusted so that in/out/main tables are all co-planer and anything that is light weight or short will go through snipe free or at worst 0.1mm, visible with the correct light angle but usually not noticed as a step feeling the board and easy to sand out.... far better than the big step some leave.

When I get the Sherwood back i'll take my time to minimise at least any snipe

"Lunchbox" thicknessers.... I like that. That's what they eh!

I had this Delta many years ago, and build a support for the bed.





These Allen/Hex bolts add fine adjustment ...



Zero snipe as the tables were coplanar and solid as a rock.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Part of the issues with the benchtop (or lunch box) thicknessers is the chassis which is generally fabricated from pressed sheet metal sections. The design and construction is OK for small sections but when you feed through long and large cross sectional stock that is relatively heavy compared to euro and north American woods they distort.

Supporting the in & out feed tables as Derek has done minimizes the potential for any distortion while the temp solution as the OP has done still permits distortion of the chassis. It still better than doing nothing. Like all machinery you get what you pay for and designs have limits.

fwiw I have just received a new Sherwood 13" helical spiral thicknesser which is quite a step up when compared to the equivalent H&F or Carbatec 2 blade offerings.

ps, I feed through quite a lot of stock to produce 1.6 to 3 mm strips, so I changed the problem. I raise the cutter head and place a 300 mm wide sheet of melamine faced MDF through the thicky from start of in feed table to end of out feed table and clamp it into position. It solves two problems, firstly the minimum thickness that can be machined and lastly greatly reduces snipe.

I think the easiest way to get rid of snipe is with a melamine top as in this youtube

I can recall seeing someone put a long melamine board right through the machine and using that for the bed instead of the machine itself. If long enough with good support to get it level snipe can be eliminated. It was longer than the one shown in the video from memory.

Originally Posted by Aussiephil

When I get the Sherwood back i'll take my time to minimise at least any snipe

Still not back yet?

Originally Posted by Treecycle

Still not back yet?

I guess that I caught a perfect storm on getting the item back... Toll picked up 14 days ago, the same day Vic went into 5 day lock down again, based on the tracking that stalled it leaving CBR till the wed and it was scanned into MEL last friday 19th and got delivered late yesterday..

As i typed this got an email, the machine has been checked, confirmed issue, new machine unboxed, checked and good so it's on it way back.

Cheers
Phil

I've found that I only get snipe when i'm lazy ie feed timber through and expecting it to come out perfect the other end without any additional support.

With that said anything i thickness that has already been cut to length i (hold and) walk with it as it comes out the back and have found that to be the most convenient solution in a small space. I've tried the sled/adjustable stands in the past and have found that at some point you always go longer than what the fix was originally intended or just inconvenient ie having to constantly re-adjust stands, having them fall over or just wasting shed space with the additional footprint space required to accommodate the fix.

Understanding Snipe | Thickness Planer Help

I use roller supports on the inlet side and outlet side, adjusted slightly high and about 600mm to 1m away from the thicknesses tables, when thicknessing long lengths. Minimal if any snipe.