"James "Cubby" Culbertson" wrote in message
. ..
Hiya,
I'm having some issues with my jointer and was hoping for some help.
I'm getting a tapered board with the front of the board narrower than the
trailing end (I'm edge jointing). I understand this could
be due to the tables not being parallel or the cutter head is too low. I
checked the tables and they seem
fine. I did lower the outfeed table slightly to where if I put a board
on it and manually spin the cutter, it moves the
board about 1/2" or so backwards. But now I'm getting snipe. In the
past, I've fixed that by setting the outfeed table to be
just below the top of the cutters. Am I to assume that there is a very,
very fine line between snipe and taper here or
is there something else I should be addressing? I believe my technique
is fine (hasn't changed in the 10-15 years since I've
been using a jointer with no problems).

If the outfeed were high you would get the taper on the trailing portion.
You'd also hit the leading edge on the table, because the cutterhead had not
removed enough material. If the outfeed is low, you get the snipe you
induced by lowering. The symptom you report is a characteristic of outfeed
droop or not feeding with even pressure.

Recheck parallel, make sure your stock is not bowed in the middle causing
misfeed, and try again.