Jointer snipe?

[T.J. Mahaffey]

I've been tuning up and testing out my new 6" jointer and all in all it seems to work well. Hoever, I've got one major problem: bad snipe at the end of the wood... When I run a piece through, everything seems to go fine, but it'll get real rough over the last couple of inches of the stroke and take a nasty snipe.

Can anyone offer a suggestion on what I need to adjust to prevent this?

[T.J. Mahaffey]

Woops. I suppose if I do a search on "jointer snipe" first, I'll find an answer to my question and not have to repeat what everyone else has already covered... D'oh.

[Steve Jenkins]

maybe save you a search. the outfeed table is too low. raise it until the snipe goeas away. If it isn't adjustable then you have to lower your knives.

[T.J. Mahaffey]

Raise the outfeed slightly until it goes away. Great, got it.
I did that yesterday and it then stopped the wood right at the start of the outfeed table. So, I'm thinking I also need to adjust the infeed to get the right balance... I've been adjusting both, but I think my main problem here is that I'm not adjusting finely enough. Maybe cranking the wheels too much at a time and missing that middle-ground position where they need to be.

[Steve Jenkins]

TJ another thing to look at is to make sure that both tables are coplaner. They should be parallel to each other. You are right about the adjustment. It doesn't ake much to go from sniping to hitting the edge of the table.

[Don Baer]

TJ,
If you have access to a machinist level (the kind with the metal edge), place it on the outfeed table and adjust the height until the bottom of the level just kisses the blades when they are top dead center. The you can adjust the infeed table to the amount of material you want to take off.

[JayStPeter]

Heres the technique I use with success. I take a piece of scrap and run it through the tablesaw so the two edges are nice and straight. I place an edge on the outfeed table, fire up the jointer and push the piece slowly into the knives (reverse of feed direction). You should hear the knives hitting the piece without seeing much cut when the outfeed table is at the right height. You've got 4 chances at being too low before you have to retune your test piece. I've never needed all 4 corners. Just make sure you're darn close before starting. I like to start high and lower the piece into the blades for the first shot, then tweak it back up.
This is more difficult with shelix heads as you no longer hear it as easily. I've taken to putting a light pencil line on the piece. The jointer will partially erase the pencil line without leaving an obvious snipe line.

Jay

[Mark Carlson]

One suggestion I have is to set your infeed table 1/64th inch below your knives and leave it there. Then start to raise your outfeed table in very small increments until the snipe goes away. If you start getting a convex shape in the middle of your board you've raised your outfeed above your knives. On my jointer I find settting the outfeed to be 1000th of inch below the knives to be perfect.

~mark

[T.J. Mahaffey]

Thanks for everyone's helpful advice. I was able to get rid of my snipe problem with these hints in mind. Yay!