How to prevent Snipe - Planers

In this article, you'll learn the best practices to prevent snipe.

Let's define what Snipe is: Snipe is simply when a board is cut deeper at the beginning and/or end when going through a planer. This is typically caused by the board lifting up into the cutter head while it’s only being held down by one of the pressure rollers.

Example:

In order to prevent this from affecting your material, we have the following 2 recommendations:

1. Use a sacrificial board before and after:
This method to reduce planer snipe is to use a sacrificial before and after the piece you are sending through. The idea here is that the snipe will happen to the lead and trail boards, and everything in between will be clean. To do this, just have 2 boards that are long enough to be safely planed. Send one short board through first. Then, push your good piece directly behind so it is touching the lead board and push it in until the feed rollers grab it. Follow the board up with another sacrificial piece using the same method.  If you have multiple boards to plane, then you can feed them through train style and then end with the sacrificial board. 

2. Cut the snipe off the ends:
This is the easiest but most wasteful way to get rid of snipe.  You can just cut off the ends of the boards where the snipe is.  The problem with this method is that not only is it wasteful since you have to buy longer boards, but it also takes a lot more time.  You’ll have to make 2 more cuts on every single board you run through the planer.

If after checking these 2 options, you're still facing the same issue, please feel free to contact our support team at 800-433-9258.