Planing short, thin pieces

[Roger Jensen]

I hve a DeWalt 733 planer that has been working quite well. However, I have encounted a problem that is probably common in bench top planers - snipe on short, thin pieces.

I need to plane pieces of cherry that are about 11 inches long, 3/4 of an inch wide and just under 1/4 of an inch thick (they are for purse handles).

I tried a melamine base that was as wide as the planer bed and 30 inches long, hoping a solid base would prevent the snipe if I had the wood pieces slide on top of the melamine base. However, it doesn't seem to make any difference on the snipe problem.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I imagine a drum sander would be perfect for this, but it isn't currently in the budget.

I have about 200 of these handles to make, so I'm happy building a jig if you think it would help.

Thanks,

Roger

[Jason Hanko]

How bad are the pieces sniping?
The planer sled should have helped a little - did you try sticking the pieces to the planer sled with some double sided tape? It could be that the roller is actually bending the thin strips by compressing the middle as they pass under it, causing the leading and trailing ends to lift up into the cutterhead slightly. Tape should stop that from happening if thats the case.

[Tom Veatch]

Roger, I've had some degree of success planing short pieces by using hot melt glue to stick longer runners to either side of the short work and planing the assembly. The longer runners extending ahead and behind the short work allows shorter pieces to be planed than the planer will normally accept and takes the snipe that would otherwise be on the work.

[Tri Hoang]

would it help if you plane long pieces before cutting them to length/width? I also suggest using a block plane. It probably cut down your sanding need as well.

[David DeCristoforo]

If you can't plane long sticks and then cut them to length, try butting the pieces end to end as they feed through the planer. You will only get "snipe" on the first and last pieces which can be "sacrificial".

[Roger Jensen]

I didn't make a 'sled' of the melamine, I just made a solid piece that sits on the planer bed and the thin pieces slide on the melamine.

Should I attempt to make a sled and use double stick tape to attach them to the sled? I guess with this strategy I can run 20 or 30 at a time so the first and last ones get the snipe (I cuuld use some scrap for these pieces).

Roger

[Jason Hanko]

Wouldnt hurt to try. :)
David's idea above might actually be a better idea to try first since it's less work.
Either run one long strip and then chop to your 11'' pieces, or try chain-feeding the short pieces so there's always something under both of the rollers simultaneously.

[Tom Veatch]

Can't speak for anyone else, or the design of their planer, but I see snipe not when there's not something under both rollers, but when the workpiece isn't under both rollers. In other words, I've never found chain feeding to be of any help with snipe unless the chained piece is rigidly connected to the leading and trailing piece.

It's been my experience that snipe occurs when the piece being planed is held down by only one of the rollers without regard to whether or not the rollers are holding down other pieces.

YMMV.

[Myk Rian]

You might try adjusting the tables up just a smidge.

[Anthony Whitesell]

Unfortunately your base was on the wrong side, the snipe is occurring from forces above the work piece not below. First, I would check your and adjust your feed tables, if you haven't tried that already.

A planer sled is primarily useful for using your planer as a jointer. Secondly, it is useful for (attempting to) plane things thinner than what your planer can normally do (limited by the design of the planer itself).

The typical solution for snipe is either attempting to adjust the planer to gid rid of the snipe, or to "relocate" the snipe so that it is not on the workpiece. This is usually done by glueing runners to the sides of the workpiece and cutting them off after the piece is planed to thickness. This technique is also useful for planing pieces to short to normally too short for your planer. Normally I find this technique a pain-in-the-butt (glue, wait to dry, plane, cut, joint, rip...takes too long). The description of your sled gave me an idea. Double side tape the "runner" to the sled and then double side the workpiece to the sled such that it is centered along side the runner (ie., 3" of runner before and after the workpiece). That would eliminate the glueing, drying, and cutting.

[Roger Jensen]

Thanks. The challenge is that I have about 200 of these pieces of wood. I don't want to do much work for each of them. Each of them has two 1-inch long slots for fabric, so they need to be routed ahead of time. Each one is also rounded over so it doesn't have a square end.

I can rearrange my cutting process to allow me to cut longer strips, but then I end up with more end routing. Sorry for not being more clear, if I get a chance I'll post a picture of the purse handle and you can get a better idea of what i am trying to accomplish.

I guess I could break down and get the 12" Grizzly drum sander, which I am assuming won't have a snipe problem on an 11" strip of wood. Alternatively, I coud spring for a Sand Flee!

Thanks again,

Roger

[Anthony Whitesell]

If your pieces are only 11" long, that may be shorter (or just under) the minimum length for the planer.

Granted we don't have a picture, but I'll take a guess as to what these look like. I'm going to assume that they are shaped similar to a serving tray handle end. Each piece 11" long, ~3 1/2" thick in the center and maybe narrowing on either side. I'm also going to assume that you have a 12 1/2" or 13" planer. If you took a piece of 12" wide melamine coated wood (which is nice because the tape will stick but all come off easily). Then tape a 1/2" wide runner to each side (sacrificial wood of course, I tend to use el-cheapo pine) and lay strips of double sided tape and arrange the pieces on the tape in between the runner. If the melamine board is longer than 11" (say 24" or 36" long) you would be able to arrange the piece to get 3 pieces through the planer per pass on an 11" sled and maybe 8-10 on a 24" sled.

Of course, a drum sander would also do the same job on shorter pieces which was the motivation for my purchase of one. At the time, I could get 1 square foot cutoff pieces of wood (including some exotics) for $1 each. But a 12"x12" piece was too short for my Delta 22-560 that requires a minimum length board of 14". Additionally,the drum drum would leave you minimal final prep as well.

[Prashun Patel]

If you have more stock, I'd plane first, then cross cut to length, then rip to width.

Of course, when you cross cut, you gotta tape or score or otherwise protect the edge from tearingout.

[Doug Shepard]

I gotta go with Tri's suggestion. Make a dado in a scrap board, set the piece in the dado and hand plane it till it's flush.

[Bill White]

If you MUST plane each 11" piece, ya gotta use a slave board. Double sided tape. Plane at least 3 pcs. per pass. Lift up on the tail end of the infeed, then lift up on the nose of the outfeed. Not much mind ya. Just enough to keep the board from noseing up on input and tailing up on output. That's what I do on my 733.
Bill ;)