Grinding Lams with the Grizzly 12" baby drum sander

[Kevin Breaux]

For all that use this drum sander to grind your lams, have you found a good setting to prevent snipe on the ends?

The factory setting for the rollers are set at .080 below the drum, have you raised the rollers?

What is a good setting for the rollers before you started recieving kick back?

Thanks all!

[**DONOTDELETE**]

All sanders are not created equal bro....i'd contact the manufacturer.....Either that or just cut your stock longer....that's what i do anyway...Kirk

[Crooked Stic]

Whats snipe?

[Dave Worden]

Snipe occurs when the ends of a board lift into the sanding drum or the cutterhead of a planer.  It makes the ends of the board thinner than the desired dimension.  It can usually be adjusted out.  One way to help stop snipe is to run boards longside the workpiece where the workpiece is shorter than the scrap pieces.  The snipe will occur on the longer, scrap boards.

[Shakes.602]

Snipe is a little Bird that Folks used to try and catch too....        

[Crooked Stic]

Ok Shakes you must have hunted them. And they skeerd you and therefore got your handle        
Ok I know what snipe is and yes I di get it with the baby sander. I have made a few bows with the lams I have ground with it. It works best with a solid sled. Do you think an Out feed table for support would help with the snipe?

[Kevin Breaux]

Fixed the snipe...
You will have to make a 36" taper jig for use on your table saw. Get the (taper blanks) cut .002 per running inch off the table saw. Be sure to cut it at least .030-.050 thicker at the butt end than your desired finish. A 36" long starting piece is the answer, the out feed rollers actually cured the snipe, but thought the 36" piece was a good tip. I found that it gives you the option of taking your actual lam from anywhere with-in, incase you sand one more than the other. I now have a taper platen wide enough to do two tapers and two parallels side by side at the same time. If you take your time and make a high number of passes taking off very little each pass, your tapers will be as good as you can buy from any shop. I had my Aluminum platens cut at a machine shop. 1/2" stock is thick enough. Be sure to tell the operator you want the bottom side FLAT and square before they cut the .002 taper per running inch cut!

The UPS guy just delivered a carbon tip bandsaw blade. The plan is to use the bandsaw to cut the blanks instead of the tablesaw to aid in kerf waste.