Using roughcut lumber for the first time

[Jim Kountz]

quite often if you simply hold the board by the end with a little upward pressure until it gets about 1/3 the length through the planer then go around and support the outfeed end the same way until it comes out that will eliminate the snipe.

Yepper, and quite often no one takes the time to truly tune their planer to avoid snipe in the first place, Its a finicky adjustment on some models but it can be done. Every once in a great while I'll get snipe. When I do I know its time to make some adjustments. Part of keeping things squared away in the ol shop.

[David Keller NC]

"What do you do about planer snipe in that case? My usual way of handling planer snipe has been to cut the board long, and then cut off the snipe that results. Of course, that's wasteful.

I have a quality planer and it is known for little snipe, but I have yet to adjust it properly and reduce it through adjustments."

While not completely impossible, it's difficult to get adjust any planer to not give you any snipe at all. But there's a way to reduce it substantially if you've a planer with a cutter head lock (like a Dewalt 735, for example) - plane both faces to very close to the final thickness you need. For this to work, the face on the planer bed has to be very close to perfectly flat.

After you plane the board close to the final thickness, run a last pass, taking off no more than 20 thousandths or so. Then run the board back through the planer in the same orientation that you just did, but don't move the depth adjustment.

As you might expect, you will still hear the planer taking off wood, but it will be obvious that it's a lot less on the pass where you changed the depth adjustment. On a critical piece, I may run it back through 3 or 4 times.

Doing this will generally substantially reduce the "ledge" of the planer snipe. It may still be visible, but will take only one pass with a smoothing plane to erase it (or a bit of sanding with a ROS).

[Fred Voorhees]

Greg...all I ever use is rough cut lumber. And rough cut does not necessarily mean that it is green. $2 per board foot for oak is a pretty decent price. Around here in NJ, I have paid $2.25 to 2.50 per board ft. Joint, plane and back to the jointer for a square edge and then to the tablesaw for width. Wider planks than can be run through your jointer can be shot through the planer on a planer sled. I use mine often instead of ripping lumber in half and then gluing it back up again.

[Zach England]

When we talk about planer sled, is this as simple is a very flat, rigid board the width of the planer, or is there more to it?

[Mike Cutler]

When we talk about planer sled, is this as simple is a very flat, rigid board the width of the planer, or is there more to it?

That's pretty much it Zach.
Mine is made of MDF and has a firing strip across the leading edge. I use door shims and blue painters tape to "level" the board out, and double sided stick tape to hold it in place. I have a 3HP Jet that applies more than enough downward pressure to keep it place.
There are some really nice examples that have been posted by folks here on the board. Much more refined and "permanent" than my method. Do a search and you'll get a lot of really great ideas.