Before I bought my planer, I did what I always do - read a lot of reviews. A common theme was snipe at either or both ends of the board that was planed. But it seemed that if the user supported the board going in and when coming out the snipe could be eliminated. I was getting snipe on almost every board no matter how I tried to support the board.
My main thing is model-building - particularly flying aircraft built from wood. I mostly scratch build but also build kits. I bring this up because I'm very exacting in my building. But the smaller wood sizes make a lot of things easier such as jointing the wood. I can use a sanding block, a razor plane or a razor knife and straightedge (which usually still needs final touches with a sanding block).
I don't have a woodworking bench and the first time I tried to plane something long was pure misery. I concocted all kinds of ways to hold the thing including shoving it up against a concrete step in my shop to act as a stop. The opposite end kept lifting as I was planing and the results are what you would imagine.
So I've put a lot of non-jointed wood through my planer and I've gotten a lot of snipe. For shop stuff I usually work with kiln-dried pine 2X material and cabinet ply. I've yet to build anything from hardwood beyond small items like slingshots and small tools.
OK, so what's this all about? Well, my current project is that chemical cabinet I talked about in another thread. I decided to see what I could really do if I were motivated. So it took me two solid weeks to joint all the wood. After that I fed it through my planer. Out of 48 pieces, only three or four had snipe.
My conclusion (which could be wrong) is that the reason I got so much snipe before was because I was sending bowed and twisted wood through the planer. So I'm wondering if this planer is getting a bad rap because it's getting fed wood that isn't ready to be planed.
If I find out anything else I'll let you know.
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