Hey, I'm Brad from Fix This Build That.
Today we're talking planers and how to eliminate snipe while you're planing your boards.
I'm going to show you six different ways that I tested and tell you which one
I think works the best. Alright stay tuned, and we'll check it out.
So what is snipe? Snipe is when a planer cuts deeper on the beginning and/or end of a board.
There are two pressure feed rollers in a lunchbox planer.
One on the infeed one on the outfeed and the cutter head in between them.
They feed the board through the planer and keep it flat against the bed while it's being cut.
When both rollers are contacting the board you don't have any issues.
But when only one roller is holding down the board like at the beginning or end of a cut
the free end can lift up into the cutting head and it removes extra stock thus giving you snipe.
So that's what's happening, and that's what we're trying to eliminate.
This is about a 40 inch board.
This is the front that I ran through the planer just a moment ago just to try to induce some snipe.
So the front end of this board is going to be significantly
lower than the rest of the board and I'm going to use this carpenter pencil to show you that.
Okay, as I rub it up here the high spots are going to get covered in lead and the low spots are not.
So you can see that right about here
it dipped down and all the front of this mostly is much lower than this right here.
And so that's what we're trying to eliminate.
Alright now let's get into the ways to reduce snipe.
The first method is the easiest method and is also the most wasteful method.
This board has about two inches of snipe on either end.
So what you can do is as you're cutting your boards you're planing them to size
you can leave extra stock and just cut it at the end.
If you're going to have a
40 inch board you want to add two inches on each side.
So I would plane at least a 44 inch board and then cut off to size from each end .
Now again, that's the most wasteful, but hey if you've got the money to burn...
Then you might as well do it right?
The second way to reduce snipe is the way you set up your planer.
Most planers have these beds that can go up and down.
Some they're static some of them don't have them some are an option.
But if you have a in feed bed, in feed tables, it likely moves up and down,
makes that horrible noise while it does it, and there are adjustments
down below where you can adjust the bed to level it up and down.
What you want to do is
have the front and the back slightly higher
than the planing surface. Basically that's lifting the board. That's going to be a common theme here.
Is that you want to lift that board up so the front end is not raising into the cutter head.
That is a great way, number two way to reduce planer snipe.
The next four ways to reduce snipe
are going to be how you actually feed the boards into the planer.
Before I get started you always want to wear hearing protection.
These planers are extremely loud, so make sure that you're wearing hearing protection.
As well as safety glasses.
Make sure if any chips are flying out that you're protecting your eyes and your ears.
The third method for reducing snipe is having a board go in ahead of it and behind the workpiece.
I'll show you exactly what I mean here, is having a scrap board.
Alright so if I'm going to be planing this long board
I will send a short board in before it and a short board in after it.
Basically these are sacrificial. These should accept the snipe and reduce this snipe on the board.
So let's see how that works.
Here's the board that just came out.
This is the 40 inch board. This is the front of it. So let's see how the sacrificial boards did at pulling that snipe off.
That did really well you can see here there is hardly any snipe at the end. You have the consistent markings and
I am going to say that this is a good method to reduce the snipe.
Method four for reducing snipe is using sacrificial side boards that are longer than your glue up.
So what I've done is I've glued up a few pieces here in the middle.
So this would be my piece in the middle the sacrificial boards would be here on the outside.
And I just put some blue marker on there to
show the contrast in between those.
So as it goes through the theory is the snipe will happen up here and down here
leaving your board clean. let's see how it works
Let's see how the snipe did.
So this is kind of surprising to me a little bit actually. I did not have any snipe at the beginning of these boards
but if you see here, there's actually a dip
at the back.
The sacrificial piece does have a little bit of snipe here and in the back
But the back end is very clean so there is not that divot.
So this one is really interesting that's definitely not snipe free it is reduced, but not snipe free.
The fifth way to reduce snipe on your boards while you're planing is to run the board in at an angle.
So instead of running it straight in parallel and it hitting the rollers I'll tilt it
fifteen, thirty degrees here, whatever.
It depends upon how long the board is but if you tilt the board then the roller will hit the front edge and
not have such an impact further down the board.
So we're going to tilt the board coming in and see what that does.
We'll use the long boards on this one
Alright this is the board we just ran through it an angle.
I'm going to see what happened. This is the front of the board.
That looks really clean to me.
There is very very minimal
Right here up it at the corner, you see you have a little bit, but that is very minimal. Let's check the back end.
This was the trailing edge coming out and
again very minimal. I think that almost has nothing in any way of snipe.
I think running through at an angle is definitely a good option.
The sixth method for reducing snipe as you're planing is
to lift the board as it's coming in lift the back end and lift the front end as it's coming out.
The whole idea here is that you're trying to keep the edges away from that cutter head.
So as you're feeding the board into the planer you hold up on the back end just a little bit.
Maybe a sixteenth of an inch to an eighth of an inch to take the pressure off
and make sure that that front edge is not hitting the cutter
head as the board comes out. The same thing you lift up the back end to keep the pressure off of
the edge as it comes out to make sure the cutter head doesn't hit it.
This is something that I've used a lot and we'll try it now and see how it works.
This is the board that just came through with lifting on the edges. Let's see how that worked.
This is the front edge.
There's a little indentation there. There's not snipe on this back in but again as that toller hit
It looks like maybe it has bounced up.
Can barely feel that. That would sand out really easily. Let's check the back.
And maybe just a little bit of snipe there on the back, too.
I'm a little surprised at this actually.
I'm going to say that this one reduces
but it definitely does not eliminate the snipe because there's a little bit here still.
Alright now you know six ways to reduce snipe while you're planing.
Thank you to all my supporters over there on patreon you guys are awesome.
If you'd like to support me, you can go down the link below to my patreon site.
I'd also love for you to like and subscribe it really helps out the channel to grow and a big thank you to Ridgid Power
Tools for sponsoring this video. I have loved this Ridgid planer.
I've been using it for over eight years now, and it has never let me down.
So it's a great tool. If you think I missed something, if you don't like my
experimentation methods, if you think I missed a way to do it that's way better.
Tell me below tell me in the comments.
Tell me what I messed up or tell me your favorite method.
I would love to hear it. Alright guys until next time get out there and build something awesome.