Planing Short Boards

[Scott Welty]

A neighbor asked if I could plane down some shelf boards for him. I said sure. Then he brought them to the shop.
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He just wants them to be flat on both sides. They are about 16-20 inches long and 2+ inches thick.

My method for long boards is to shim and screw the board to a 'carrier board' that is flat. Sending this through the planer 'copies' the flat carrier to the warped or cupped board in question. Once top side is flat I can flip it and do the bottom side. This might work this time too but the boards are so short I won't be able to cut off the snipe as I usually do.

Suggestions on this and any else that would come up because of short boards?

Scott

[Neil Gaskin]

I've had luck attaching longer sacrificial boards to the side of short boards so the snipe occurs on the attached boards.

[Scott Welty]

I've had luck attaching longer sacrificial boards to the side of short boards so the snipe occurs on the attached boards.

Help me...sides? These boards have to be same thickness (height) as boards I want to plane then?

[Randy Heinemann]

You could push them through, ends butted up against each other. The first and last one through may have some snipe on one end, but the ones in the middle should be fine as long as you make sure that you feed them through one right after the other. They are very short though. It would be best if you could joint one side flat first but, if you don't have a wide enough jointer, obviously that won't work and at least some of them seem a little short for that even.

[Andrew Hughes]

Those aren't boards they are blocks of wood.Dirty looking too,do yourself a favor bring them back to him/her and drive over to Homedepot.Buy something there.

[Peter Christensen]

Hot glue them end to end on a board or length of MDF and add some 2x material at both ends to take care of the snipe. Repeat for the second side. You can also flank them on each side of the sled with 2x's like Neil said and do away with the ones on the end. Your neighbour is going to owe you a new set of blades or a sharpening depending on your machine.

[Matt Day]

16" is plenty long enough to go over the jointer and through the planer.

[larry senen]

You shouldn't have snipe so bad that you have to cut it off. Something is not set up right.

[Randy Heinemann]

Sure there are no nails or screws buried inside?

[Bill Dufour]

Run a piece of 1x4 or 2x4 on edge along with the first and last boards in the train. It needs to be ripped first so it is only a little wider then the thickest board is thick.
Bill

[Wayne Lomman]

Randy is correct. You send them through head to tail and you only get a bit of snipe on the first and last. Set yourself up so that you stand beside the machine and feed in with one hand and catch with the other or better still, get your neighbour to tail out. Have all the timber sorted and selected for grain direction etc in advance.

Having said that, some guys have criticised the machine set up. Not everyone has a perfect machine. Old ones wear a hollow in the table. New ones aren't great unless you spend a fortune. All these factors contribute to snipe. To minimise this, as you feed in, hold some upward pressure on the timber until it is held down by both pressure rollers. This is only about a second on time. This will absolutely minimise snipe. Do the same on outfeed as the timber leaves the pressure rollers. You will have plenty of passes through the machine to practice the technique. Spoken from experience with dozens of machines in multiple shops. Cheers

[Scott Welty]

Thanks all...I think I'll try making a train on a carrier board with side boards hot glued on to limit snipe. Stand back and hold mah beer!

Scott

[Charles Lent]

You didn't say what planer you have. I plane shorts of about 16" with my DeWalt 735 with almost no snipe (a little line across the wood about 0.010" deep that sands out easily. My old Delta Lunchbox planer was very bad on snipe and I solved the problem by using scrap 3' long 2 X lumber ripped to the approximate height of the short(s) being planned and then hot glued to the sides of the short (keeper) pieces. As long as there is support for the planer head both before and after the wood that you don't want snipe, you will be fine. If you had a couple of extra shorts the same thickness and you ran every piece through end to end with no significant gaps between them with the first and last piece being the scrap shorts. the pieces in between will be fine and the two scrap pieces will get the snipe. You can put a carrier piece under them if you wish, but it isn't necessary as long as you can manage feeding them through with no gaps between them, and something scrap leading and trailing the good pieces of the same height, you should be fine. Take light cuts and repeat to keep the drive rollers from slipping and clean the drive rollers before you start, again after the first pass on each side (dirt and debris on the unplanned wood will collect on the rollers and reduce the roller feed traction).

Charley

[Bill Dufour]

No need to glue the side board unless it is too narrow to stand up on it's own.
I do not understand why many folks state the sacrificial boards should be attached to the good wood?
Bill

[Jim Morgan]

No need to glue the side board unless it is too narrow to stand up on it's own.
I do not understand why many folks state the sacrificial boards should be attached to the good wood?
Bill

If the good wood has any wind, passing it through the planer without attaching the sacrificial boards will not remove it.