jet 16 32 drum sander

[Jay P]

Having problems with snip marks at the end of wood being fed into the drum sander.  Any suggestions?

[Dave H]

If you mean snipe, if the pieces are of longer length then you need to support them level with the machine out feed. If you lift up at the end it could cause snipe, if you let the piece droop down on the exit from the drum sanding it will get snipe on the end of the piece. If your getting snipe in the middle of a board check the feed belt to see if something is sticking to the belt that would make the board rock and cause it to be thinner at the rocking point. Good luck

[gee-dub]

As stated, a drum sander faces some of the challenges of a planer.  If the material is not supported so that it feeds along a consistent plane (the bed of the planer) you will get irregularities.  One common one is a greater depth at the start and end of a piece of material (snipe).  Like a planer's feed rollers, many drum sanders have only one pressure roller before and after the head roller.  If the material is not supported the pressure rollers cannot prevent the material lifting into the drum prior to, or after, all three elements (infeed roller, drum and outfeed roller) are engaged.

Imagine the material in this highly precise diagram  feeding from left to right.

[krtwood]

Feed your pieces through touching each other.  Add in a sacrificial board of the same thickness at the start and end if you are that worried about it.  The snipe will only be on the sacrificial board.  But I find the snipe from the drum sander is pretty easy to sand out with the random orbit sander and not something I worry too much about.