Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Jointer snipe Question.
Barry Irby
I have an old Delta Rockwell 6" jointer with a newer spiral head. It has started to leave very faint snipe on the trailing end. About the last inch of the piece. I've thought myself into circles as to what to do to fix it.
The out feed table is adjustable. Do I raise it a thousands or 2, or lower it?
I have a dial indicator, but it is dificult to get and accurate reading on the spiral head.
Is this as simple as fiddle, try and see?
Raise it
Re: Jointer snipe Question.
Keith Newton
You need to raise the outfeed table.
Without an indicator, a good method is to lay a STRAIGHT short piece of wood on the outfeed table with the end laying across the blades, then rotat the head by hand. If you raise too much, it won’t walk the stick along when the blades make contact. If you mark the edge of the Wood at the edge of gap, and it advances 1/2” with each contact, try to reduce it to half or less.
Just raise it small amounts till the snipe stops
Dick Coers
No measuring or techniques needed. Raise it a tiny amount, check, repeat if necessary. I've used the straight edge advance method, I usually shoot for 1/8" advance with a single blade. But the lower the outfield to get a snipe and then raise till you don't get one works quite well.
Re: Jointer snipe Question.
Dave Bair
You want to measure the movement of the out-feed table so you need not be concerned about the height of the cutter head. Set base of your dial gauge on the in-feed table, engage the magnets and lower the gauge on it's arm onto the out-feed table, passing right over the cutter head. Zero-out the dial and crank up the out-feed table however many thousands you choose.
Cut an inch off the board
Thanks All...
Barry Irby
Clint got what I usually do about snipe. I generally cut pieces about four inches longer than needed and cut the snipe off both ends. Not as wasteful as it sounds. I leave the ragged split ends from the lumber pile on until I am finished with stock prep.
I will sneak the out feed table up a thou or two and see if that kills the snipe on the jointer. It was working perfectly. I wonder if this is temperature related?
Maybe I should not have set my coffee on the out feed table.
Thanks for the help.
The answer is right at your fingertips.
Mike Circo
Go to the "Articles" section of WoodCentral and bring up the "Badger Pond" archived articles. Right there is the best method I've ever found for setting jointer knives. It's saved me uncounted hours of frustration and wasted lumber.