Snipe from Thicknesser

Just recently I tried an experiment to avoid snipe in some timber that I only had just about enough lengtth of and there was not enough to allow for cutting the snipe out.

I have a 14 inch width thicknesser, which helps in this instance and the board I was thicknessing was 6 inches wide.

I used two sacraficial pieces of timber around the same starting thickness of the 6 inch bit, but they were a good 4 inches longer at each end.

The snipe went into the sacraficial bits but by the time the 6 inch bit came to the blades it gave no sign of snipe in the work piece.

I have only done this once, so I cannot guarrantee that I have discovered anything really useful.

One of the commonly published workarounds for snipe is to glue a couple of longer strips to the edges of the work so that they extend either end and run the composite component through to final thickness, then saw/joint the sacrificials of the edges.

Sounds like what you did.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by malb

One of the commonly published workarounds for snipe is to glue a couple of longer strips to the edges of the work so that they extend either end and run the composite component through to final thickness, then saw/joint the sacrificials of the edges.

Sounds like what you did.

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I have not seen anything on this previously, but I did not glue the sacraficial bits on to my work piece, they just travelled through with the work bit, just as they would if you were thicknessing strips together.

Any sacraficial bits would need to hang out either end by at least 100mm, depending on the thicknesser you use.

My effort was a quick thought, and a one up experiment for me.

I guess that if one had a long piece to do the you could use 4 bits and hold the first two as they start to go through the thickensser, and then feed two end bits as the tail come up. Sounds cumbersome I think.

Of course, you only need to do this type of thing on the last one or two runs through the thicknesser as yu get to your final thickness.

Sounds like a good idea Black Bear - but I do have a worry about the possibility of kick back if the auxilliary pieces were not quite as thick as the main piece and did not get held down well by the feed roller or the anti-kickback pawls. I never had kickback on my thicknesser but I always stand slightly to one side just to be sure :-)