Dewalt 735 - snipe problem

[jim gossage]

i have owned a dewalt 735 for 3 years now (without extension tables), and have had no problems with snipe :) until the past several months:( . the amount of snipe varies from 0.003 to 0.10:eek: . prior to the snipe problem, i did not do anything fancy when i fed my wood except to hand-support the board as it went in and came out. now, if i put a fair amount of upward pressure on the board, the snipe is minimized. something seems to have changed. here is what i have done so far in an attempt to return to the "good ole times":
1. installed extension tables with the outer edges as high as they will go; helps a little.
2. checked out the machine thoroughly with a dial indicator and straight edge; table bed is flat to 0.005 or less; knife is parallel to bed by <0.001; rollers are parallel to bed by <0.002; front roller is 0.030 lower than knife; rear roller is 0.012 lower than knife.
3. cleaned bed and rollers (already pretty clean).
4. pulled off the right side of the machine and the roller sprockets, and pulled off the right bushing on the front roller. the bushing was in good shape, but i'm wondering about the spring. with 20-30% JAF (jim's available force) i can push the right end of the front roller up; however, i need 90-100% JAF to push up the rear roller.
Questions:confused: :
1. are the front springs the problem?
2. any other suggestions to get me back to the "good ole times"?

[Dennis O'Leary]

I have one of these too - and have the same problem. From new it was fabulous, no snipe. Now, almost but not every board has snipe. I have not investigated, as I tend to leave my boards long enough to cut the snipe off, but it is annoying. I thought that something must have changed in there. BTW i only use it for light home use.

[Allen Bookout]

Same thing here. I have not used it very much but at first I could get rid of the snipe on the last part of the board by putting a little upward pressure on the outfeed side just as you were saying. Now, after using it a bit, that technique is not working any more. I can minimize it but still get a little. I hate to waste good wood.

[Sam Shank]

Ditto to all above posts. Currious to see if there is a solution.

[jim gossage]

i am pretty much a light user also. i hoping that the SMC veterans will weigh in and save us all! i also wonder whether the "automatic" column locks may not work so well anymore. i might try replacing the springs and see what happens.

[Jim Becker]

With the tool unplugged, rut a long piece of MDF (like one of those pre-cut shelves) through the machine using double stick table to keep it on the infeed, outfeed and machine tables. Now run some material through and see if you still have the snipe problem. If you do, there may be a problem with the cutter head system and or lock. If not, table adjustments may be the key.

[Jeff Heil]

I also own this planer and had some snipe issues as I set it up. I like Jim's idea to check the alignment of everything. If that doesn't solve your snipe issues try setting a small thin metal rule like a 6" pocket rule on the far outboard edges of each table and use your straight edge to set the height of the in and outfeed tables. Run a test board and play with it, you might need a bit more. Setting the ends of the tables slightly higher than level will have the same effect as lifting boards as they emerge to reduce snipe. My planer has given me snipe free cuts for almost 9 months of service and for at least 1000 bf. I tend to run boards end to end to also reduce snipe. Good luck.

[glenn bradley]

Jeff,
I agree, that would solve his problem but his OP states " have owned a dewalt 735 for 3 years now (without extension tables), ".


Jim,
I have seen the extensions for cheap now and again and would recommend them. An alternative would be a permenant install of the sled Jim B. discussed. Instead of acting as a sled it would become your new platten; extending out from the front and rear of the planer. A few of our favorite mags have had a version of this to cure snipe in extensionless planers. Of course all measuments and scales would have to take this into account. I know this goes nowhere near explaining why it is happening now and didn't before, sorry.

[Jeff Heil]

Your correct, missed that. My mind seems to fill in the blanks with what it wants to see, vs what it there.

That said, I would recommend buiding in/outfeed support using a set of roller stands, or investing in the DW tables.

[Benjimin Young]

Ok, my 2 cents are a little high level but I like to always start with the "What Changed" question

If I understand Jim's situation, it has been working fine for quite some time and only recently started to act up. The only thing that changed was the machine got older and had more use, eventually giving him snipe.

If I have this correct, then this amature (me) is thinking it has to be related to one or more of the following:
Something needs cleaning
Something needs adjusting
Something needs replacement (worn or broken)

On a different tack, if it is a worn or broken part problem could it have anything to do with the DW734 problems prior to serial number 200440 see thread
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=32024&highlight=dw735

My DW735 has not yet given me any problems (other than some slipage fixed by cleaning) so I have a vested interest in watching the outcome of Jim's problem.

Good Luck!

Ben

[glenn bradley]

Here's an example of what I spoke of in my previous post:

http://www.woodmagazine.com/wood/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/wood/story/data/447.xml

[jim gossage]

i have owned a dewalt 735 for 3 years now (without extension tables), and have had no problems with snipe :) until the past several months:( ........

1. installed extension tables with the outer edges as high as they will go; helps a little.......

jim, glenn, and others

thanks for your suggestions. i think my original post may have been a bit long-winded and confusing (see quote above) - i did install the extension tables in an effort to fix the snipe, with the ends high, but it did not fix the problem. i also checked my serial number and it is low, suggesting that it may need servicing - i'll give dewalt a call.

[Allen Bookout]

Mine seems to have fixed itself. No more snipe. I didn't do a thing to it. Have been running some oak and cypress through it and no problem with either type of wood.

[jim gossage]

Mine seems to have fixed itself. No more snipe. I didn't do a thing to it. Have been running some oak and cypress through it and no problem with either type of wood.

allen,
i'm just north of you in GA, would you mind stopping by and touching my planer. maybe that's all it needs! it turns out that the "service" issue mentioned earlier will not solve my problem. i've got the parts to replace the springs....now all i need is the time...maybe if i spent less time surfing SMC....naw!

[Allen Bookout]

allen,
i'm just north of you in GA, would you mind stopping by and touching my planer. maybe that's all it needs!

Ahaw---a new career. I would make the trip if it would work. Mostly my stuff breaks. First time that anyhing has fixed itself. I am holding my breath and hoping that it last. I ran quite a bit of stuff through and so far so good.

[Fred Voorhees]

[QUOTE=glenn bradley -An alternative would be a permenant install of the sled Jim B. discussed. Instead of acting as a sled it would become your new platten; extending out from the front and rear of the planer.[/QUOTE]

Glenn, I don't think Jim meant that to be a permanent fixture within the planer. I think he meant it as a means to check the problem. That being said, I have the same planer and I haven't had much of a problem with snipe, if any. But I have to say, I can't for the life of me see how anyone could use the machine without infeed and outfeed tables. There is virtually nothing there without them on the machine. I didn't buy any with mine, but I had plans, and since then, have implemented, a built in situation with mine. It sits right level with my benchtop and has, virtually, a nearly twenty feet infeed table and roughly sixteen foot or so outfeed table. I have to beleive that this certainly helps with any snipe situation.

[Eddie Darby]

allen,
i'm just north of you in GA, would you mind stopping by and touching my planer. maybe that's all it needs! it turns out that the "service" issue mentioned earlier will not solve my problem. i've got the parts to replace the springs....now all i need is the time...maybe if i spent less time surfing SMC....naw!

Can you say how much force it takes in Jim units to compress the new spring, and can you let us know how the replacements work turns out.

Great thread. Thanks

[jim gossage]

followup post: i got some new springs from dewalt, flipped the planer upside down, removed the bottom, pulled out the front roller, and replaced the roller springs. no more snipe! HOWEVER, in the process of reassembling it, i accidentally bumped the elevation wheel. this threw the bushings that ride up and down the threaded guideposts out of alignment, and the elevation wheel would not budge after my initial reassembly. i was sure that i was now the proud owner of a $450 paper weight, but a careful anlaysis of the mechanisms, reassembly, and tune up with a dial indicator had my planer humming again. did i mention there were some 4 letter words that the neighbors probably heard?! if you are considering replacing the springs, send me a PM and i'll be happy to advise on how to avoid my initial debacle!

[glenn bradley]

Great solution Fred. I have thought about having a similar setup but just can't figure out where to put it. I'm jealous. I have the same musings about a dedicated area for my CMS but that has not happened yet either. I'd have to say with your install you were safe on not getting the tables ;-)

[glenn bradley]

Sorry about that Jim. I did miss item number one (how did I miss item number one???). At any rate I hope the service helps with the problem. On my dw734, the raised outer edges of the tables do the trick but I did have to experiment with some subtle adjustments till things got consistently good. Good luck and keep us posted.

[Allen Bookout]

Thanks for the report Jim. I have been waiting for the correct fix so that I will have the solution when I need it.

[Andy Howard]

followup post: i got some new springs from dewalt, flipped the planer upside down, removed the bottom, pulled out the front roller, and replaced the roller springs. no more snipe! HOWEVER, in the process of reassembling it, i accidentally bumped the elevation wheel. this threw the bushings that ride up and down the threaded guideposts out of alignment, and the elevation wheel would not budge after my initial reassembly. i was sure that i was now the proud owner of a $450 paper weight, but a careful anlaysis of the mechanisms, reassembly, and tune up with a dial indicator had my planer humming again. did i mention there were some 4 letter words that the neighbors probably heard?! if you are considering replacing the springs, send me a PM and i'll be happy to advise on how to avoid my initial debacle!

Jim,
Thanks for the followup! This is good info, as my DW735 is sniping also. How hard were the springs to get from Dewalt? What did they cost?

Thanks
Andy

[jim gossage]

Jim,
Thanks for the followup! This is good info, as my DW735 is sniping also. How hard were the springs to get from Dewalt? What did they cost?

Thanks
Andy

allen,
the springs were a couple of bucks, and dewalt shipped them in a couple of days. the springs are pretty easy to change, as long as you take precautions to prevent the bushings from moving on the threaded rods and the rods from moving in the planer housing - even a small amount - during servicing and reassembly; a 1/8th turn of one of the rods will move the head out of parallel by at least 0.020". each threaded rod has a double set of threaded bushings that are linked by screws and pushed apart by a stiff spring to raise and lower the planer head. i suspect that this assembly is what keeps the head from moving on its own during planing. the lower bushing can be adjusted to compress the spring more, and perhaps increase the locking force on the rods. although totally conjecture on my part, i think that increasing the tension on these springs could potentially be another way to limit snipe; the tech support folks at dewalt could not tell me anything about this mechanism.

[Laurie Brown]

Here's an example of what I spoke of in my previous post:

http://www.woodmagazine.com/wood/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/wood/story/data/447.xml

I constructed a bed very like that from MDF, which is over 3 feet long. I have the same planer shown in that pitcure. I get about 2.5" of snipe on both ends of any board I run through it, which is a real pain. If I run boards end to end as mentioned elsewhere, there's no snipe where the ends of the boards meet, but the first one will have snipe on the end, and the last one will. I usually either cut the sniped section off, wasting wood, or sometimes I don't need to worry about it because I will be routing off most of that material, such as when making raised panels for doors. If the snipe isn't too bad I can sometimes sand it to where it's not noticeable. If there's some way to eliminate or at least minimize the snipe, I would love to know how!

[George DeMartino]

I just bought the dewalt dw 735, and it is generating snipe right off the bat (brand new) at the leading and trailing ends of the board (white oak). .008", give or take. Took it in for servicing and was told that it was within expected tolerances: .002" on PINE (which I typically don't use in my furniture building). Have 3 days left to return it to Home Depot, and would be included to exchange it for another of the same model. But now wondering if that's a mistake--am I better off keeping the machine and trying the fixes that folks have recommended here (such as the permanent sled, which I have not yet tried)?

[Andrew Hughes]

Are you sending wood thru that has one side flat?
The 735 I used to have did not snipe if I planed wood with the flat side down.

Aj

[Mike Ontko]

I've got the 735 as well and occasionally see a bit of snipe on the trailing 2-3 inches of the boards I process through it. I haven't determined if there's a particular reason it occurs--material type, thickness, and length of the board being planed, whether I tend to feed material more to one side than the other, or whatever. I find I can minimize or remove it by elevating the leading edge of the board slightly on the outfeed side. Similar to the sled that Jim has described, I use an auxiliary board (3/4" melamine, with a waxed surface) placed over the existing platten bed and extension wings to elevate the material so I can make thinner veneers. This also extends the length of the infeed and outfeed support, which seems to help. Most of the time things come out just fine but there's still occasional snipe. Over the past 2-3 years, I've run a considerable amount of ash, beech, cherry, and Douglas Fir through it. I've swept off the rollers on a couple of occasions, but haven't actually cleaned them as prescribed. It could be that the roller spring tension is fading a bit, especially after using it for two projects that involved a lot of 7-foot lengths of 8/4 ash.

For most of what I do though, I'm willing to accept this small amount of imperfection and just compensate for the possibility by milling rough stock that's a little longer than needed in case I have to trim off the sniped end. If it becomes a critical issue, then I'd likely give consideration to trading up from the lunchbox/benchtop style planer to a dedicated unit with a stronger feed system.

[George DeMartino]

Andrew: Yes, I've been very careful to test out the planer using boards that are perfectly flattened on the jointer, so that's not the problem. I guess I'll try the melanmine bed, Mike, and see if that reduces the problem. I've already tried adjusting the infeed and outfeed tables, tilting them down toward the machine, and that didn't solve the problem. I guess from what I'm reading here (in this thread) that other folks have had the same problem, and so there's no point exchanging the machine for another of the same make and model. But it's disappointing: i used a cheap delta for years, and never had this problem...

[Andrew Hughes]

That's a bummer George,I've heard some will snipe and some machines don't.I don't have my 735 anymore.
I have a PM with a HH head and it snipes.Ive adjusted it many time but some wood will snipe more than others.
So I just live wil it.:o

[lowell holmes]

I have the 734 planer. I find that lifting on the outgoing end of the board will prevent snipe. I think that is why the tables are adjustable.
You can adjust the tables to provide this lift with a bit of experimentation.

My first planer was a Porter Cable and it was bad for snipe.
Lifting on the ends of the board prevented the snipe.

The tables on the 734 are adjustable to provide this lift.

[David J Blackburn]

I got some snipe regularly when I first got mine and adjusted the beds forever without really removing it. Keep the cut quite small basically prevents it, but when I threw some 1/4" red oak in the other day (which was not flat at all) I got snipe again at the trail end (not at the lead end).

Short story is - I think it's a fact of line, but you should be able to live with it if you limit the depth of cut. If you're still getting some with tables properly adjusted, flat boards and a shallow cut, that suggests something's not right.

[Eric D Matson]

I have one of these also. I had snipe when I first got it with the extension beds attached. I had read somewhere one time to adjust the infeed and outfeed extensions a penny thickness higher than the planer bed itself. That has worked for me.

[Mike Ontko]

For reference, here's an earlier (1/13/2016) posting on the related topic of "Auxiliary bed for DW735" (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?239673-Auxiliary-bed-for-DW735)

[Brian Tymchak]

I was never able to get the in/out feed tables on my 735 adjusted properly to eliminate snipe. I think they are too short to really provide the support needed for longer, heavier boards. In fact, I took them off a few years ago. I rely on supporting the board by hand going in and coming out. I can almost eliminate snipe that way, unless I get a bit lazy.