# After market column/ cutter head locking for planers



## phillip.c (Aug 9, 2012)

Hello all,

Several lunch box planer brands are incorporating column or cutter head locks into their lunch box planers to reduce snipe. I was wondering if anyone has tried to make a mechanism for their existing planer that locks the cutter head to the columns. 

My local Home Depot carries the DW734, which has a mechanism like this. Just looking at the floor model, it's pretty simple. Has anyone thought about this? 

Before considering this, I attempted to help the snipe problem on my porter cable planer by adding a 4' by 12'' torsion box that acts as infeed-outfeed tables. This helped but didn't solve the snipe issue.


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

Funny you mention this; I was pondering this early today.
Why not just use a 12" wide by 8' L x 3/4' piece of plywood.
Lay your work on top of it and run it through.
As long as the plywood hits the rollers first it should eliminate that initial bump(?).


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

I have a Delta...same as the one in the picture. That lever on the side locks the motor unit in place, once you've raised/lowered it to where you need it. Is this the type of thing you're talking about? I've been bad about ensuring it's locked down after every adjustment...


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## Cherryville Chuck (Sep 28, 2010)

I have a 16" King and it will leave a little snipe even with the locks tightened. The problem is that when you start the board lifts one feed roller, and apparently the planing head partly, until the board lifts the second roller and then the head levels out until the board passes the infeed roller. At that point it tilts the other way. If you measure the length of the snipe you"ll find it is exactly the same length as the distance from the feed rollers to the cutting head. The only solution is if you can prevent the head from tilting when only one feed roller is making contact.


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## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

DaninVan said:


> Funny you mention this; I was pondering this early today.
> Why not just use a 12" wide by 8' L x 3/4' piece of plywood.
> Lay your work on top of it and run it through.
> As long as the plywood hits the rollers first it should eliminate that initial bump(?).





Cherryville Chuck said:


> I have a 16" King and it will leave a little snipe even with the locks tightened. The problem is that when you start the board lifts one feed roller, and apparently the planing head partly, until the board lifts the second roller and then the head levels out until the board passes the infeed roller. At that point it tilts the other way. If you measure the length of the snipe you"ll find it is exactly the same length as the distance from the feed rollers to the cutting head. The only solution is if you can prevent the head from tilting when only one feed roller is making contact.


Maybe it could be set up like Dan suggested ,make a sled to support the work ,then add a piece of sacrificial stock ahead and behind the good stock to take the snipe. 

Herb


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## Ghidrah (Oct 21, 2008)

The length of snipe from my planer is also equal to the diameter of the cutter head. I'll try and meas the span between rollers and CH to see if its the same. I always pushed a sacrifice through before and after. I also lowered my in/out feed rollers about a 1/4" and got a shallower snipe depth.


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## Cherryville Chuck (Sep 28, 2010)

Herb Stoops said:


> Maybe it could be set up like Dan suggested ,make a sled to support the work ,then add a piece of sacrificial stock ahead and behind the good stock to take the snipe.
> 
> Herb


Dan's suggestion was to put the board on top of a plywood sheet. That helps when you have a moveable planing head and a fixed bed with rollers. My King allows me to adjust those rollers on an eccentric so that no roller is above the bed or quite a bit is above. I leave mine down to avoid the problem Dan is suggesting a fix for. 

Running multiple boards through does help eliminate snipe on some ends but my planner won't grip all the boards equally so some stall going through until the thicker one(s) pass through which leaves burnish marks on the stalled board so it often just causes a different set of problems.


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## phillip.c (Aug 9, 2012)

Some people online suggest attaching runners to each side of a board that extend past the board's length on both sides. It requires nails, though, and I hate marking up new wood...


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## projim (Mar 5, 2015)

I have tried all the tricks of the trade, still couldn't get rid of the snipe. Until I tried what Phillip suggested above but instead of nails on the sides, I used hot glue gun. It worked & was easy to pull out side rails.


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## Ghidrah (Oct 21, 2008)

I'd be leery, expecting hot glue to withstand the pounding of 2 to3 blades 20KPM.


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## Stick486 (Jan 4, 2013)

Ghidrah said:


> I'd be leery, expecting hot glue to withstand the pounding of 2 to3 blades 20KPM.


don't sell hot glue short...


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