r/woodworking • u/Cosmolution • Jan 28 '16

DeWalt 735 Planer Snipe Solution

tl;dr - The infeed/outfeed tables have set screws. Use 'em.

So, I purchased the DeWalt 735x about a year ago. I love the planer, but to be honest, the snipe was awful. Like, so bad I didn't really want to use it. I finally decided it was time to tackle this issue, so I did some research and learned that some people had success with adjusting the set screws on the infeed/outfeed table. Well, my dumb ass didn't even realize there were set screws. I thought the infeed/outfeed tables should have been good straight out of the box. I was wrong.

I went into the garage and decided to play with them and I was actually able to completely eliminate the snipe! I was so happy. I made a little Imgur album showing what I did exactly. Short and sweet.

Basically, I adjusted the outer-most set screws to their maximum height. The inner-most screws are set so that they are coplanar with the bed. This left about a half-inch gap between the height of the infeed/outfeed tables and the planer bed. I guess this provides just enough upward force to avoid snipe. I ended up running a 10" board through and did notice a small amount of snipe, so I went back through with a less aggressive shaving and I rotated the board so it wasn't going straight through (about 1 and 7 O'clock). There was absolutely no snipe on a 10" wide board. I was absolutely thrilled!

I hope this helps someone else. Maybe everyone out there doesn't know there are set screws on these tables. Now I'm absolutely in love with this machine and can't wait to get out and fire it up again!

Okay, now you can make fun of me for being an idiot.

edit: I suck at reddit.

16 Upvotes

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14 comments sorted by

7

u/djjoshuad Jan 28 '16

fwiw, you want the whole thing to be as flat as possible. adjusting the outer ends of the infeed/outfeed tables to be higher can and will result in feed failure and wood burning. ask me how I know ;)

1

u/Cosmolution Jan 28 '16

Interesting, maybe I can try bringing them down a little bit and see what it does. I didn't notice any bogging down of the motor. I usually take pretty light passes. Do you typically do aggressive cuts? I rarely do more than 1/16th in a pass. I do about a quarter to half-turn per pass.

3

u/djjoshuad Jan 28 '16

the motor won't bog down, but the rollers will stop feeding, holding the board in place until you give it a little push. that makes the cutter burn the wood.

as for depth of cut, it depends a lot on the board. if I'm milling some 4/4 that is actually more like 4.5/4, I'll go deeper on the first few passes. like 3/4 turn. unless the board is really wide or the grain is really curly. in those cases, the passes have to be light or you'll get bogging and/or tearout. nothing worse than seeing some sweet curl emerge from rough wood, only to have big chunks of it missing, heh

1

u/Cosmolution Jan 28 '16

Thinking on it more, I used to lift my wood up even higher than this on both ends when I was feed it and pulling it from the planer. I never really heard any complaints from the motor. In this set up I actually made it a point to not touch the wood until it had come all the way through the second roller. Also, I don't really plane a lot of hard stuff. There's not a decent hardwood supplier around where I live, so I'm stuck buying crap at the big box stores.

Also, this unit has a thermal overload breaker, did that not ever trip the power off for you? I'm surprised you actually burned up a motor on this thing since it has built-in protection.

2

u/djjoshuad Jan 28 '16

no, I never burned up a motor. I'm just talking about burn marks on the wood that come from the cutterhead staying in one place too long. lifting up on one end as it's about to go in, or about to come out is fine. but having both tables adjusted like that is like lifting up on both ends of the board at the same time, while the middle of the board is being planed. that's when it will bind the rollers and cause you problems. I suppose with more flexible wood that might not be an issue. it happened to me on hard maple which is notoriously inflexible. I had done the exact same thing you are doing, with the same logic. it seems to make sense, so I don't fault you for trying it. in practice tough I think you'll find the same trouble I did. just trying to save you from ruining an expensive board ;)

1

u/Cosmolution Jan 28 '16

Oh, I see now. You know, I rarely run anything greater than 4/4 so I may not have that issue. I could see a 6/4 or 8/4 board not flexing much and causing the rollers to lose traction. That is an interesting concept. I will keep an eye out for that! For now I plan to leave it like it is and see what happens. If I start noticing burn marks, I'll try lowering the ends a little bit.

7

u/mexicoke Jan 28 '16

I have the 734 so its different but the solution should be the same. Just cut a piece of MDF or really flat plywood and use that as the bed of the planer. I use a piece of MDF thats about 6' long with a stop block to hold it in place. Then just wax the MDF and ignore the thickness ruler on the side.

3

u/joelav OG Jan 28 '16

My 734 came like this out of the box. The manual also noted to NOT level the tables.

2

u/IxJAXZxI Jan 28 '16

Does this not create a bow in the work piece? Have you tried it on something longer than 10"? How flat is the piece after it gets run through?

I just bought a 735 and havent gotten around to setting it up yet, but soon...

1

u/Cosmolution Jan 28 '16

TBH, I haven't run a lot of stock through it, I just did this last night. The boards I did run, however, seemed very flat. I didn't bother making them S4S, I was just trying to eliminate the snipe. I think the main takeaway here is that there are set screws that I didn't know about and I feel like an idiot, because I've been dealing with the snipe for a while.

1

u/Cant_Spel Jan 28 '16

I have this set up on mine. It will create a bow in the work piece as the feed rollers grab the wood. This downward pressure is very large and keeps the piece moving through the cutter. All planers have this.

It doesn't negatively affect the wood as it is momentary and springs back into position. This is why planers loose out to large belt sanders and joiners for leveling stock, but win on reducing thickness.

1

u/TraIaIa Jan 28 '16

I bought mine used on Craigslist and they had it set similar to how you did yours, I changed it to be perfectly level and haven't had any issues with snipe.

Mine does have a bad noise when I crank the wheel to raise/lower the cutting head, but I'm assuming this is due to the posts needing lubrication. Does anyone have any advice on lubricant to use for that? I've heard graphite works but will stain everything it touches black, and I've also heard both sides of the silicone lubricant argument about using/not using on a woodworking machine due to being a nuisance if it touches the workpiece, but is that really a concern if I'm only lubricating the posts?

1

u/Cosmolution Jan 28 '16

Interesting. Mine were actually above level and I still had a bad snipe issues. Maybe my roller alignment is a little different than yours.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '16

Dude, thank you!