I’m having a hard time avoiding snipe on the planer and was curious if anyone has some advice, or if the feed tables could be adjusted to reduce it. I’ve read conflicting advice online about whether planers can be adjusted to eliminate snipe.
I’ve tried putting upward pressure at the infeed and outfeed ends of boards and it didn’t seem to help. Running the boards back to back seems awkward to me, as far as getting my next board in and getting to the outgoing board before it falls on the ground. Maybe I need to practice this more.
Usually I just leave enough extra material it will get cut off, but the project I’m working on now I wasn’t able to do that, and long term seems wasteful.
Is the drum sander a good option to remove snipe from boards, or will it just propagate snipe already in the board, or cause its own snipe?
Unfortunate fact of life with that planer. If you only have one board, impossible. With more than one, you can load them end to end, but you’ve clearly looked at that. You can also get another piece of wood at the same thickness to run at the front and back. It will keep the rollers from angling as it engages and disengages from your workpiece.
It depends on the wood. I’ve been using pecan mostly, and bamboo. Both are extremely hard. For those, you have to start with 60 or 80 grit, to remove anything. Also in those woods, I don’t like the grain that sanding leaves behind, even in finer grits. I still have to go back with RO. I would suggest 80 to 120, then repeated light passes. Final few passes with 180/ 220. You can get some rolloff snipe on the outfeed, but less than an inch. I usually support the board with a finger as it exits.