Palm Sander to Correct Snipe on Small Boards?

[Steve H Graham]

I'm still fooling with walnut for a Telecaster-type guitar.

I'm getting usable results with my planing sled now, but somehow I'm ending up with about 3" of snipe at both ends of the wood. The odd thing is that the snipe is extremely shallow. On some of the boards, I can't even see it when I put them together (face to face) to see how they'll glue up.

I'm waiting on infeed and outfeed tables, plus a hand plane, and I'm about ready to spring for a jointer. Nonetheless, I would like to make this wood work for me.

Question: would it be practical to just get a palm sander and use it to reduce the humps? I would say the worst of it is the height of a playing card. The pieces will be something like 20" long and 7" wide after I cut them down. I would have to sand down several boards, flattening an area about 7" by 10" on each.

[Josiah Bartlett]

Standard procedure is to just waste the sniped area by cutting it off. You might be able to sand it, but the thickness of a playing card will take forever with a palm sander. A belt sander would be faster.

[glenn bradley]

Hmm, standard procedure for me is to setup the machine properly so that snipe is not a problem . Snipe occurs when the material begins and/or ends contact with the cutters on a path other than the one you were after.

Until your tables arrive and you can go through a good setup procedure; lifting up on the rear of your material slightly on infeed and lifting up again prior to the board leaving the control of the infeed roller can help. This can compensate for the period where the cutter head is engaged but only one feed roller has control of the material.

You will hear many folks discuss elevating the outer tips of your tables to correct for snipe on lunchbox planers. This will be done during your setup effort. My little DW734 has the table tips raised to where they are easily an 1/8" higher than the platen.

My floor standing machine tables are dead-flat but that is just the nature of that machine and the feed mechanism it uses. Whatever gets ride of the snipe is the right setup for you no matter how different it is than the way Tom, Dick, Harry or I did it

[Steve H Graham]

Tonight I got a new piece of walnut to replace a couple of pieces I screwed up, and I asked the people at the lumber place to face-joint it. I'm talking about a well-known place that claims to have a big shop where they do custom work. It took several minutes for me to explain that there was such a thing as face-jointing, and after that, they showed me their jointer, which was a 6" Delta.

It looks like Miami is not the place to be if you need expert help with your wood projects.

I'm going to fiddle around with sanding and see what happens. In a few days the feed tables will get here, and I can always get a jointer.

A long time ago, I made a neat adjustable outfeed thing that attaches to my sawhorses, but I can't get it close enough to the planer for short workpieces. Maybe I should be using my giant 4' Rust sled plus the outfeed thing. The sled would reach it.

[Nelson Howe]

I find my smooth plane is much faster, easier to control, more consistent, quieter, and much more satisfying to use for removing snipe than a palm sander. It will get all the machining marks out too.

Nelson

[John Coloccia]

Question for you. Are you only getting snipe on the sled side or do you get it on the side you run through flat as well. Just to be clear, you "joint" one side with the sled and get snipe. When you turn it over and plane the other side, do you get snipe there too? If you don't, a simple solution is:

1) joint one side
2) plane the other side until it's flat
3) turn it over and finish planing to thickness on the first side

It's generally a good idea to alternate sides every so often when planing anyhow. You'd be surprised how much wood will move just by planing. It will also move for a couple more days afterwards. Maybe not much, but a little, and taking from both sides equally will help keep the board straight. Even kiln dried lumber has different moisture content as you get to the center of the board. You want to keep both sides as equal as you can within reason to minimize it, and planing from both sides equally is a very simple way to do that.

You'll really see this when you shape the back of your neck As you remove wood from the back, the neck will move. Ultimately, the final fret leveling will do the final flattening after you've completely finished the neck.

Just my opinion.

[David Christopher]

Steve, if you are going to be doing this very much, a drum sander will flaten the boards with no snipe and ready to glue up

[Steve H Graham]

It works.

I clamped the boards, one at a time, to my handy Workmate and hit them with 100 grit. I would say the process took 3-5 minutes per side, which is acceptable. The sander highlighted the snipe lines for me, and after that, I just sanded between them until they were invisible or nearly so. I took the boards and clamped them against each other, and from the side, you can't tell there was ever any snipe. I think they'll glue up okay.

I think I overestimated the depth of the snipe. Lacking a precision straightedge, I had no way to measure it.

John:

I've fooled with this so much, I'm not sure of the answer, but I believe I'm getting snipe both ways. I think it's my technique and the lack of feed tables.

I'm not making the neck. The body is obviously a big challenge for me! I don't even know what tools I'd need for a neck. The shape of the back changes along the length, and I can't even guess what kind of non-CNC power tool would carve that.

Nelson:

My first plane will arrive next week. I'd rather use it than the sander, but it's impossible to get a working plane in a hurry, and I want to move on. It amazes me that I can't find a plane in a major city like Miami in half an hour. I never would have guessed that. I can go into a hardware store and see boxes of new planes, but I didn't know until I got into the topic that they were basically useless. How crazy is that? I don't understand why they're on the shelves if they all suck.

David:

I guess over the next couple of weeks I'll figure out whether a jointer or a sander is my next move. I'll still have to face-joint, though. At least I assume so. With the band saw and planer, I can make slabs with what appears to be less than 1/16" of irregularity, and without a jointer, I can make them into guitar-width pieces, but I don't know how long it would take to flatten the guitar-width pieces on a sander. Perhaps you would have a guess.

[John Coloccia]

The shape of the back changes along the length, and I can't even guess what kind of non-CNC power tool would carve that.

On mahogany and cedar, spokeshaves work nicely. On maple, especially figured, a good rasp work wonders I also use a lot of Iwasaki carving files. They take a bit of technique to use, but the surface they leave is impressive! There's no magic to it. Just a bit of elbow grease and practice

Keep at it. You'll get there. You obviously have an eye for detail and perfection. That's a very good start.

[Steve H Graham]

You obviously have an eye for detail and perfection.

I like that much better than "anal retentive," which is the phrase that has been going through my head all week. Thanks.

[Don Jarvie]

Get a random orbital sander. It will work better than a palm and more forgiving than the belt sander.

Until you get more comfortable with the planer buy dead flat wood. You should focus on all sides and top and botton planes fairly smooth.

No reason why you can't buy wood from the lumberyard that is flat (pararrel) on both face and all you have to do is plane it to the desired thickness.

[Lonnie Cook]

Hi Steve,

I haven't been following your threads closely, so I apologize if this has already been covered.

I face joint boards that are wider than my 6" jointer on my 12-1/2" Delta planer. I secure a 4' X 12" piece of MDF to the planer bed with a cleat against the planer infeed. I use a 5' X 12" piece of melmane (sp) particle board for the carrier. These sizes because that's what was in the cutoff bin at HD.

I place the board with crown up on the carrier and stick blue painter's tape to the carrier at all four corners of the board. More places if needed. I hot glue the board to the blue tape. The hot glue fills the voids and locks it to the carrier so it doesn't rock. Then I hot glue or CA glue runners on each side of the board that extend 4"+ past the ends. The runners are thicker than the board. The runners eliminate snipe.

Plane one side flat. Pry off the board from the carrier, scrape off the hot glue, leave the runners attached to the board and run the other side through on the long base board. The blue tape allows the hot glue to release from the carrier.

With your thin stock, you may want to hot glue it to the carrier in a number of places. If the hot glue adheres too well, use clear packing tape instead of painter's tape.

- Lonnie

[Peter Quinn]

It works.

I clamped the boards, one at a time, to my handy Workmate and hit them with 100 grit. I would say the process took 3-5 minutes per side, which is...

Way too long? Given your situation and tools I'd look out for a #5, #6 or #7 (jack, fore or jointer) plane at a flea market in reasonable order to joint those edges for final glue up preparation. I guess you have it covered at this point, but long term, thats a long time to joint 24" of board times two for a glue up. With a decent plane it would take me maybe three passes to get a perfect glue line? Say one second per pass?

Of course you have to tune them, sharpen the blades, have the stones and other things to sharpen the blades, learn to set them up (trial and ERROR, for me mostly the latter at first), but once your there you have control over the wood, you are no longer at its whimsical mercy, and that brings a certain freedom. Yes several years of concentrated struggle and you can reduce your time from several minutes to several seconds!

John was recommending shaves and other luthier's tools. I'm not a luthier and can't help you there, but I can say each hand tool I have added to my repertoire has made the next one easier to learn and use. Its about building blocks and small steps.

[John Coloccia]

John was recommending shaves and other luthier's tools. I'm not a luthier and can't help you there, but I can say each hand tool I have added to my repertoire has made the next one easier to learn and use. Its about building blocks and small steps.

As a general FYI, the Iwasaki files are available at Woodcraft. They work with almost a shearing cutting action. I often don't go lengthwise like a normal file. I hold it at an angle and sort of go widthwise along the wood. When going lengthwise, I usually incorporate this little twisting motion as well to get the same shear cut. Often times, I pull them towards be as well, which is different than a typical western rasp or file.

These beautiful shavings come off when you do it just right, and the surface is practically ready for finish. They'll snag if you do it wrong or if you have a heavy touch, but it's remarkable what they can do once you get the feel for them.

I picked one up a while ago just to see what it was like, and the next day I went in and bought one of every style they had.