Hammer A3-31 - Help me eliminate snipe

[Edwin Santos]

Hi,
I'd appreciate any advice from a Hammer A3-31 owner (i.e Rod Sheridan) on what adjustment I need to make to eliminate the snipe I am experience with the planer function. The snipe is happening at the trailing end of the board only, slightly more on the operator side compared to the hinge side.

It's not a significant amount of snipe, but I know the machine is capable of delivering zero snipe, so I assume I need to make an adjustment to accomplish this, probably to the feed rollers. The literature that came with the machine doesn't have much information on how to make the adjustment which is why I'm asking here.

I've kept the bed waxed, and I am being careful to tighten the clamping lever once the planing height has been set.

Thanks for any guidance,
Edwin

[Greg Parrish]

https://txbonds.zenfolio.com/p90543695/ec17054f1

check out this video Felder sent me to help adjust roller tension. Got mine worked out doing this with some trial and error.

[Jamie Buxton]

There's one small technique thing which might help you. When you thickness a board, go to the outfeed side and pick up on the end of the board before the planer gets to that snipe area. If you don't do that, the weight of the long end of the board is trying to lever the trailing end of the board up into the cutter knives. This helps my A3-31 work snipe-free.

[Jim Becker]

There's one small technique thing which might help you. When you thickness a board, go to the outfeed side and pick up on the end of the board before the planer gets to that snipe area. If you don't do that, the weight of the long end of the board is trying to lever the trailing end of the board up into the cutter knives. This helps my A3-31 work snipe-free.
I do exactly the same thing with my MM FS350. Nature of the beast.

[Derek Cohen]

I do the same as Jamie and Jim. On the very (very!) occasional times I have experienced snipe on the A3-31, it has been a heavy board and I was not vigilant in this regard. The extra weight placed extra stress on the rollers to keep everything uniform.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Edwin Santos]

There's one small technique thing which might help you. When you thickness a board, go to the outfeed side and pick up on the end of the board before the planer gets to that snipe area. If you don't do that, the weight of the long end of the board is trying to lever the trailing end of the board up into the cutter knives. This helps my A3-31 work snipe-free.

Jamie ,
Very good advice, but I'm 100% sure that's not the issue here because as a matter of habit, I do exactly as you describe.
Thanks

[Darcy Warner]

It's the pressure bar, or bed rollers.

[ChrisA Edwards]

I have the short extension table attached to the out feed side of the planer. This seems to help as it provides a little more support. I also try and support the work piece as it gets ready to clear the indeed roller.

The video above is very helpful in adjusting the roller. Logic tells me that if I am experiencing snipe, at the trailing edge of the board, the out feed roller probably need a little more tension.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi,
I'd appreciate any advice from a Hammer A3-31 owner (i.e Rod Sheridan) on what adjustment I need to make to eliminate the snipe I am experience with the planer function. The snipe is happening at the trailing end of the board only, slightly more on the operator side compared to the hinge side.

It's not a significant amount of snipe, but I know the machine is capable of delivering zero snipe, so I assume I need to make an adjustment to accomplish this, probably to the feed rollers. The literature that came with the machine doesn't have much information on how to make the adjustment which is why I'm asking here.

I've kept the bed waxed, and I am being careful to tighten the clamping lever once the planing height has been set.

Thanks for any guidance,
Edwin

Hi Edwin, you probably have too little pressure on the one side of the outfeed roller.

A video was attached in a post, it shows you which nut to adjust.

Also put a block of wood on the table and use a 1 X 2 to lever the roller up, it should move a couple of mm. If it doesn’t, lube the sliding blocks it travels in.

You have zero snipe without having to hold the board.......Regards, Rod

[Edwin Santos]

Greg,
Thank you for the link to the videos, they provide precisely the adjustment guidance I was seeking.

Rod, thanks for your advice (once again). From your past comments, I know the planer is capable of zero snipe.
I can see why they've named both a college and a mall after you in Ontario. My wife attended the former once upon a time.

Edwin

[Tim Derr]

Hey Edwin,

If you ever have any trouble again with your machine reach out to me here; I'll be glad to help you out and make sure you're well taken care of.

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?269492-Felder-Group-USA-Support&highlight=

All the best

[Edwin Santos]

Hi,
I thought I would report back and share that I was able to get my A3-31 to plane snipe free. I ended up speaking with Felder's technical support for some guidance to supplement the good advice I received here. The Felder tech thought roller height adjustments alone would be sufficient, but I found that spring tension adjustments were necessary in addition to the roller height adjustment, at least in my case.

For anyone else experiencing this issue, I used a dial indicator to set both the infeed and outfeed rollers .015 below the cutterhead. It's important to keep them even on both sides of each roller to avoid "fishtailing" as is described in the video Greg shared. That got me to minimal snipe. From there I played around with spring tension until the snipe was completely gone whether I hold the board or not.

Thanks again for the help.
Edwin,

[Rod Sheridan]

Glad to hear it’s working as designed......Rod

[Greg Parrish]

Sounds good Edwin.

Out of of curiosity did you take any pics or description of your dial gauge setup used for checking roller to cutter relativity? I would be interesting in checking mine for my own curiosity. Thanks.

[Rod Sheridan]

Sounds good Edwin.

Out of of curiosity did you take any pics or description of your dial gauge setup used for checking roller to cutter relativity? I would be interesting in checking mine for my own curiosity. Thanks.

I use 2 blocks of wood, the larger one is used as a gauge to raise the table so that the block just touches the cutter, the smaller one is used to check the roller free height.......Rod

[Lance Conry]

Out of interest, do you lock the height adjustment with the little lever every time? I have a new unit, and find that unless I lock the lever hard and take off less that 0.5mm, I get snipe on the leading edge. I will contact my dealer, just want to know whether it is unreasonable to expect to not have to lock the height every time.

[Edwin Santos]

Out of interest, do you lock the height adjustment with the little lever every time? I have a new unit, and find that unless I lock the lever hard and take off less that 0.5mm, I get snipe on the leading edge. I will contact my dealer, just want to know whether it is unreasonable to expect to not have to lock the height every time.

Lance,
Yes, I lock the height lever firmly every time as a matter of habit. The adjustments discussed in this thread have eliminated all snipe for me. I think the height lock lever is there for a reason and besides the instructions, it stands to reason it should be tightened each time.

From what you describe, I think your machine could use a spring and/or roller height adjustment because you should not get any snipe, and certainly you should not be restricted to 0.5mm passes. I'm in the habit of light cuts with the machine but even then I'm in the range of 1-1.5mm.

Edwin

[Edwin Santos]

Sounds good Edwin.

Out of of curiosity did you take any pics or description of your dial gauge setup used for checking roller to cutter relativity? I would be interesting in checking mine for my own curiosity. Thanks.

Greg,
I used a gizmo called a TS Aligner that used to be manufactured and sold by a guy named Ed Bennett. I must have bought it 20 years ago and I don't believe it is available anymore. It will approximate the function of the Oneway Gauge that Felder recommends in the sense that it will mount the dial indicator horizontally or vertically, so in this case I configured the dial indicator vertically and upside down so the measuring point was registering against the cutter (or roller) and the base was on the planer table.

[Rod Sheridan]

Out of interest, do you lock the height adjustment with the little lever every time? I have a new unit, and find that unless I lock the lever hard and take off less that 0.5mm, I get snipe on the leading edge. I will contact my dealer, just want to know whether it is unreasonable to expect to not have to lock the height every time.

I almost never use the lock, and I have zero snipe. Normal passes for me are 2mm deep...........Rod.

[Greg Parrish]

Duh, didn’t even think about using my oneway gauge. Thanks.



Greg,
I used a gizmo called a TS Aligner that used to be manufactured and sold by a guy named Ed Bennett. I must have bought it 20 years ago and I don't believe it is available anymore. It will approximate the function of the Oneway Gauge that Felder recommends in the sense that it will mount the dial indicator horizontally or vertically, so in this case I configured the dial indicator vertically and upside down so the measuring point was registering against the cutter (or roller) and the base was on the planer table.

[Prashun Patel]

Great thread. Thanks Edwin. I always just accepted the 'nature of the beast' argument. Now I will make these adjustments.

I am glad the adjustments can Sever Us (from this) Snipe.

Of course, I expect with my luck to make the problem worse.

[Rod Sheridan]

Great thread. Thanks Edwin. I always just accepted the 'nature of the beast' argument. Now I will make these adjustments.

I am glad the adjustments can Sever Us (from this) Snipe.

Of course, I expect with my luck to make the problem worse.

Ok, you win the pun of the week award..........Rod.

[Lance Conry]

Thanks Edwin and Rod for relaying your experiences with respect to using the lock.
I've got some time tomorrow (or perhaps even today), so will make some adjustments to the roller spring tension. At the risk of sounding daft, am I correct in assuming that snipe indicates insufficient tension?

[Rod Sheridan]

Either too much or too little.

Does the board travel in a straight line through the planer or skew to one side?

Regards, Rod.

[Lance Conry]

I'm fairly confident it goes through straight. When the piece of timber first starts feeding in, it kicks up the tail of the board as it's fed into the planer, which I assume is normal, and yes, I make every effort to feed in and tail out level with the bed.

[Joe Adams]

I'm fairly confident it goes through straight. When the piece of timber first starts feeding in, it kicks up the tail of the board as it's fed into the planer, which I assume is normal, and yes, I make every effort to feed in and tail out level with the bed.

Interestingly enough, my MiniMax FS30c does exactly the same thing. Kicks up the tail of the board as it's first fed in. I also tend to get snipe on the infeed end of a board.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi, yes that kick up is normal.

You shouldn't have to hold the board once it's in the planer.

One other item to check is put a block of wood on the bed, use a 1 X 2 as a lever, gently pry up on both ends of the in and outfeed rollers, observing that the blocks that hold them in the sides of the machine move a couple of mm. Perhaps a bit of spray lube on them would also be a good idea.

regards, Rod.

[Lance Conry]

Well it was over two months ago when I said I'd have a crack at adjusting my machine the next day. Unfortunately the busyness of life got in the way, and really wanted a solid several hours to make the adjustments rather than getting halfway through and needing to stop. I finally got into the workshop last week, offered a prayer to the heavens, and started adjusting.

Well the great news is that I now have zero snipe. I don't need to tighten the height locking handle, nor do I need to tail out (on the pieces of timber I've tested with). All four spring tension nuts were tightened nearly all the way up, so needed a fair bit of loosening. The other result, is that the tail of my stock no longer kicks up quite as violently as it used to, which is good for me, but perhaps not so much for my dentist. I've been pondering it for a while, but haven't come up with a definitive explanation as to why a tight spring tension would result in snipe. The best I could come up with was that the timber being overly compressed, caused a belly on each side, like pushing down on the middle of a li-lo (doubtful, but that's all I've got). The other observation, though I'm not one certain it's accurate, was that when trying to adjust out the snipe on the trailing edge of the board, the in-feed roller was the one that made a difference. I know it seemed counter intuitive at the time. None the less, this was all very interesting to me at the time, but the longer I have a machine that works perfectly, the less inclined I am to get to the bottom of the why. There are so many other exciting things to ponder, like hand planing wild grained timbers!

I took the opportunity to put together a blog article (and begin a blog for my woodworking endeavours), so hopefully will be a benefit to others with similar issues (http://lancesworkbench.conryclan.com/2019/04/removing-snipe-on-my-hammer-a3-31-whilst-thicknessing/). Thanks a lot to those that provided advice.

Regards, Lance

[Sebastien La Madeleine]

Excellent article Lance!

[George Yetka]

My 31 seams to have been fine from factory. No snipe unless its long board and i let it go out unsupported. I take about 2mm per pass no locking of the lever either

[ChrisA Edwards]

Thank You Lance.

[Frank Drackman]

That is a great article. I have the grizzly 12" J/P with a slight bit of Snipes on the leading edge. Haven't done anything about it but your article made me change my mind.

[Lance Conry]

Excellent article Lance!
Thanks Sebastian. That was the first time I’ve made a video to support a blog article (I’ve got a general, but rather eclectic blog too), and being able to take screen shots for the images made it very easy!


That is a great article. I have the grizzly 12" J/P with a slight bit of Snipes on the leading edge. Haven't done anything about it but your article made me change my mind.
Good luck, I’m glad it has managed to help one person.

[Martin Serre]

Hey Edwin,

If you ever have any trouble again with your machine reach out to me here; I'll be glad to help you out and make sure you're well taken care of.

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?269492-Felder-Group-USA-Support&highlight=

All the best


I'm having the same trouble and would like to adjust the tension on my rollers... is it possible to repost the video as the link doesn't seem to work anymore.

Regards from the North

[Martin Serre]

https://txbonds.zenfolio.com/p90543695/ec17054f1

check out this video Felder sent me to help adjust roller tension. Got mine worked out doing this with some trial and error.


Having same problem ... is it possible to repost video as the link doesn't seem to work.

Thank you,

[ChrisA Edwards]

Was this the one?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okuy42HX2-Q

[Greg Parrish]

Sorry, I closed my zenfolio account recently.