Thicknessing troubles...

[thomaskennedy]

Hi everyone...

Having 2 weeks off school i decided to make the Lap Desk that Charley has plans for here

unfortunately i only started today because i ordered a new bandsaw blade and new Planer blades from Axminster on Saturday and they only arrived today :evil:

Anyway...

I was well away on my P/T and i had done 3 of the sides on all the pieces ready to be thicknessed down to size...

I got them from around 27mm down to 22mm in about 3 passes

I stopped there because i started noticing that the last end to go through the thicknesser had more taken off than the rest...

Rather than trying to explain is i'll just show you a picture...

I know it isn't really clear but you can get the gist of it i'm sure.... now the part circled is only circled because it is the most clear on the picture, and it is the same on the whole width of the board...

Am i doing something wrong, is the planer set up wrong??

The pieces i am putting through are no longer than 350mm long and 120mm wide..

Whats causing this and is there a way around it?

Ta

Tom

ps. I'm using a Elektra Beckum HC260

 

[Philly]

Sounds like "snipe" to me-search the forum for solutions, Tom.
HTH
Philly

 

[Aragorn]

Tom
Welcome to the World of Snipe!
Take Philly's advice - there's lots in the forum about it. Lovely 8)

 

[Alf]

Yep, classic snipe. New blades? Some upset in set-up then, I would guess. Lots of solutions and remedies, but you can't really beat allowing some wastage at the ends. :wink: Nice to see some school-age folks using their holidays to such good effect - good for you, Tom.

Cheers, Alf

 

[thomaskennedy]

:roll: :roll: I havn't tried any serious solutions yet, mainly because it would take soooo long!

I'll just remember to cut a little extra next time, or even to a final pass on the jointer... 8)

However i have noticed that it doesn't do it all the time, on around 30-40% of the the peices i put it...

Ah well..

I have progressed with the Lap Desk, hoping to finish it off tomorrow (hammer) :norm:

I have also remembered to take pictures throughout the making for once =D>

Ta

Tom

 

[Chris Knight]

Tom,

As people have said - classic snipe. It is easier to eliminate for a planer than a thicknesser but no matter what you do, one fine day you get it. Many folk - including me learn to live with it without spending hours and hours trying to get a bit of stupid machinery to do what it is supposed to! :evil:

The art of living with it turns on two things.

1. Leaving a couple of inches extra at each end of a workpiece - or,
2. leave a 32nd (1mm) extra thickness and just use a handplane to get rid of it.

I strongly favour the second method as I never use a surface straight from the planer for anything. I always plane or scrape stuff from a planer to get rid of the ripples and snipe is usually very shallow and easily got rid of in the same process.

 

[Noel]

Tom, if you can't get the machine to behave or light cuts don't eradicate the snipe easy fix is to run a couple of scraps of the same timber (one in front, the other behind) with each cut.

Noel

 

[thomaskennedy]

Noel-- I knew there must of been a simple way to fix it #-o I'll give that a go!!

Chris--As the proud owner of just a Stanley Block plane i wouldn't trust it to give me a decent finish!!

Ta,

Tom

 

[Midnight]

Tom...

a couple of solutions nobody's suggested yet..

if I read your first post right, you'd eoughly sized the pieces before you thicknessed them?? next time, do it the other way round; thickness first, then crosscut to length. Thicknessing first will limit the snipe to a few boards rather than every piece...

orrrrrrrrr....

do it by hand... :wink: