# Planer Sled (s) For Smaller Pieces



## Marco (Feb 21, 2009)

*For those unfamiliar with a planer sled:
*
I want to build 4 to 5 boxes and the wood to be used was milled in lengths roughly 12" to 16"s and some smaller. After jointing all 20 pieces the task was to then plane them down to the same thickness. Keeping snipe in mind and not much wood per piece to sacrifice............. a planer sled seemed to be the answer. Instead of my one planer sled holding 4 pieces and having to repeat the process 5 times, I made more sleds from scrap.

The idea was to have a sacrificial piece of wood on the front and rear of the sled to help eliminate snipe on the (Good) wood to be used for the making of the boxes. In some cases the sacrificial pieces did not make it during the process. This due to operator error and or thinking. All of the wood attached to the sleds used double sided tape (Carpet Tape). One may consider using a glue gun to speed up the process.


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## kywoodchopper (Jul 18, 2013)

Hi Jim, I like what you did. I have a lot of short beautiful pieces of wood that I have found and I use them. I like your way better than mine. I had been just feeding a longer scrap board beside my pieces. I learn something new every day. Malcolm / Kentucky USA


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## JOAT (Apr 9, 2010)

I have sides on my planer sleds, and hold the pieces using cam clamps, using scrap wood to fill in any empty space. Works well for me. I hate double sided tape.


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## rwl7532 (Sep 8, 2011)

What was your final thickness?


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## Marco (Feb 21, 2009)

Malcom, Some of he mistakes I have made doing it this way have been:

1) Don't cut your scrap pieces much thicker than the good wood as you will end up making a lot more passes than needed

2) Don't let your scrap pieces over hang or they will pop up and off! .... oops...shut it down!

3) Length wise have the wood butted up to each other or you can have some snipe going on because of the gap (s).

Theo, I don't hate double sided tape but it is very time consuming. Great idea about using cams!

Ralph, the final thickness was 3/8"


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## harrysin (Jan 15, 2007)

This is how I thickness relatively thin boards for box making. Slightly raising the end as it enters the planer and slightly raising the far end as it's leaving the planer makes snipe impossible on a correctly adjusted machine. Whilst only one board is shown, several can be sat on the "jig"


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## Marco (Feb 21, 2009)

harrysin said:


> This is how I thickness relatively thin boards for box making. Slightly raising the end as it enters the planer and slightly raising the far end as it's leaving the planer makes snipe impossible on a correctly adjusted machine. Whilst only one board is shown, several can be sat on the "jig"


Thank you Harry... will this work with multiple pieces at various lengths and thickness?


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