Narrow thin pieces seem to be getting gouged/sniped pretty bad with spiral planer

[Nick Sorenson]

I'm running some small pieces through my planer 3"x1/4" by various lengths and it's almost as if the pieces are just bouncing through the planer. LOTS of snipe and gouges all through each piece.

I have had pretty good luck with thicker stock. I just switched to a byrd head and also adjusted my planer (was a little out of tune before). But the interesting thing is that I could plane narrow thin stock pretty well before and now I can't

Any tips?

not sure if it's my planer's setup/tuning or the head.

[Prashun Patel]

You can try waxing your bed. That helps a little.

You can also try doubleside taping the pieces to a sled for stability. However, I've found that ds tape is either too soft to allow accurate planing (it compresses) or too thin to hold the pieces properly to the sled.

A better (but time consuming) method is to build a sled that has a frame that keeps the piece relatively captive. The frame has to be glued to the sled since the edges need to be able to be planed down with the stock to 1/4"; screws would be dangerous.

[Steve Jenkins]

Try butting the pieces tight to the one ahead and if you can reach around your planer grab the piece as it is coming out and pull. It's kind of interesting trying to do both by yourself. Waxing the bed and butting the pieces tightly should make a difference.

[John Coloccia]

Fingerboards, Nick? Anyhow, it almost sounds like you may need to tweak the pressure rollers. It's always hard to diagnose without actually being there in person.

[keith micinski]

I think with the thinness of the pieces you might actually be right on what's happening. I would have though a 1/4 would be ok but that is what I would expect it to do if it wasn't. I would tape them to another piece.

[Nick Sorenson]

Seems like the tuning or the spiral byrd head are causing this because it worked fine before the change. I'm going to have to experiment a bit with the planer tuning and see what happens. The sled idea is a good one. Yes these are fingerboards mostly rosewood.

[glenn bradley]

Could be weather conditions in the cutterhead area; too windy :). Thiner stock is hard to control as the distance between the feed rollers is wide enough relative to the flexibility of the material to allow fluttering. The sure cure is to use some transfer tape and stick your thin blanks to a thicker backer to eliminate the flexibility of the thinner stock. Double stick tape is often too thick and rubbery for this task and can result in snipe. Transfer tape example here: http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=56667&cat=1,110,43466

[Van Huskey]

What are you complaining for you now have a good excuse to buy a drum sander! I would try Glenn's idea but be careful with the transfer tape, press it down too hard and you will have to break the thin strips to get them off!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

You might try staggering them from side to side.....start the next one before the previous one is completely under the head....start the 2nd one to the side of the 1st one....etc...

[J.R. Rutter]

When you say you adjusted the planer, what exactly did you adjust? The new head could be slightly different cutting circle OD. So chipbreaker and pressure bar would need to be reset. Sounds to me like the new head is larger and there is not proper pressure to control the stock.

[John Coloccia]

What are you complaining for you now have a good excuse to buy a drum sander! I would try Glenn's idea but be careful with the transfer tape, press it down too hard and you will have to break the thin strips to get them off!

Just FYI I use Woodcraft's double sided tape...the cheap one not the expensive cloth one...for this kind of stuff. I keep an artist's palette knife around for separating afterwards. I DO happen to finish my fingerboards off in on the drum sander, though. It's just less drama but significantly slower.

[Nick Sorenson]

When you say you adjusted the planer, what exactly did you adjust? The new head could be slightly different cutting circle OD. So chipbreaker and pressure bar would need to be reset. Sounds to me like the new head is larger and there is not proper pressure to control the stock.

I think you may be onto something here. The technical rep at Byrd said just get the chipbreaker out of the way, you don't need it now. So that's just what I did. On thicker stock, he may have been right but I've got a feeling that it may be part of what's happening here.

I'd get pretty good and accurate thickness cuts when I had blades on the planer but I also had the chipbreaker where it was supposed to be. I'm guessing that's the problem. I'll try putting it back next time I run a batch.

And both of you guys are right on the drum sander suggestion. I actually bought the Byrd because I figured it'd save me a little bit of cash and space in the shop. For the most part it really has! Here's the only case that I still wish I had the drum sander.

[Prashun Patel]

The other tips I've learned when planing thinner stock is to make the cuts extremely light, and to run the pieces thru diagonally. It helps eliminate flutter and snipe. I'm not sure why, but it works for me.

[J.R. Rutter]

I have a Byrd head in a big old industrial planer and I set everything as if it were still a straight knife head. Works great, no snipe except on thin pieces where it pops up a little as the trailing end leaves the chip breaker. Hope your fix is as easy as this.

I also run most things (except on edge planing to finished width) at a slight diagonal - seems to be less of a bump as the wood hits the various contact points - rollers, pressure elements.

[Larry Edgerton]

I have on occasion had to run some 1/8" strips on my SCM/Tersa planer and ran into that same problem. My solution was to make a 1/2" thick polished plate that lays on the planer bed and bridges the bed roller gap. I can plane down to an eighth with this in there, where before 1/4" was pushing it. Couple of things got me to try it. One, in Europe most planers do not have bed rollers. I wish mine had the European style bed.
The other is that I have an old Delta lunchbox with no rollers and as long as I hook up a dust collector it does a good job on small strips. This made me think that the fluttering starts at the bed rollers. Once it starts it just escalates, or so my thinking goes.

Then again, I could be totally wrong......

Larry

[Ryan Mooney]

What are you complaining for you now have a good excuse to buy a drum sander! I would try Glenn's idea but be careful with the transfer tape, press it down too hard and you will have to break the thin strips to get them off!

Excuse to buy a drum sander? Hahah we need no excuse.

I think the feed rollers are likely to cause problems on narrow pieces as well. I'm pretty much with everyone else try a sled with a number of pieces stuck to it. Possibly double sided tape, maybe try hot glue?

I would also bet that the wind from the cutter head/DC could move the pieces around and cause issues at that size so having something holding them down and aligned should help.