The short answer
No. A helical or spiral cutterhead will not fix snipe on a DeWalt DW735, and owners who buy one expecting it to are consistently disappointed. Shelix, Byrd, Fox, Lux Cut, Grizzly, the brand does not change the outcome.
This is worth knowing before you spend the money, because a head runs anywhere from about $330 to $750 and the snipe will be waiting for you on the other side of the install.
That is not an argument against helical heads. They are excellent at the thing they were designed for. Snipe is simply not that thing.
Why the upgrade cannot touch it
A helical head replaces straight knives with rows of small square carbide inserts set at a shear angle. That changes how each cutting edge meets the wood fibers, which is why tear-out around knots and figure improves so much.
Snipe is a different kind of problem. It happens because the machine changes shape slightly during the cut.
Two rubber rollers hold your board down, one ahead of the cutterhead and one behind. For most of the pass, both are loaded and the machine sits in a steady state. At the start, only the infeed roller has the board. At the end, only the outfeed roller does. In those moments the load on the carriage changes, it flexes a few thousandths, and the cutting plane moves closer to the board. That is the deeper cut you see on the first and last few inches.
None of that involves the cutting edges. Swapping what is mounted on the cutterhead does nothing about how the carriage responds to a change in load. You get a better surface, sniped in exactly the same places.
The case where it gets worse
There is one scenario where the upgrade actively costs you, and it catches people out.
Some aftermarket helical heads for the DW735 are made to a smaller diameter than the original. Your feed rollers were positioned for the factory head. Drop in a head with a smaller radius and the geometry between roller and cutting circle shifts, so the rollers now press relatively deeper into the board before the cut happens. Deeper compression means a bigger load swing at the handoff, and a bigger load swing means more snipe.
Owners who install an undersized head and find their snipe got noticeably worse are not unlucky. It is a predictable result of the dimensional change. We cover this in more detail in our introduction to planer snipe, and we make a removal gauge specifically for owners in this situation.
The other thing nobody mentions before you buy
A number of DW735 owners report that their machine trips its internal breaker under a helical head, particularly on wider stock or heavier cuts. The accounts are consistent enough to take seriously, though it clearly does not happen to everyone.
The explanation offered most often is that the insert head presents a different cutting load to a motor sized for straight knives. Whether that is the full story, the practical effect is that some owners end up with a quieter planer that stops mid-board, and a few of them give up on the machine entirely.
If you are weighing the upgrade, it is worth searching for current reports on the specific head you are considering rather than taking a general recommendation.
What a helical head is genuinely good for
Having said all that, there are good reasons to want one.
- Tear-out. The real win. Figured maple, curly grain, knots, anything that chips out under straight knives behaves far better.
- Noise. A substantial drop. The DW735 is loud and a helical head makes it noticeably less so.
- Edge life and cost. Four usable corners per insert, and you rotate individual inserts rather than replacing a full set of knives after one nick.
- Nicks. One bad spot no longer ruins the whole width of your cut.
If any of those are your actual complaint, the upgrade is money well spent. Just buy it for those reasons.
If snipe is what you are trying to solve
Start by confirming that snipe is what you have. A consistent deeper cut in the first and last few inches of the board, running the full width, is snipe. Lines along the length are nicked blades. Rough patches around figure are tear-out, and that is the problem a helical head solves. Our guide to reading the marks on your board walks through the rest.
If it is snipe, the thing to change is how much the load shifts at the handoff, which means controlling how deeply the feed rollers press into the board. The DW735 provides no adjustment for that from the factory, which is the whole reason this machine has the reputation it does. Our Planer Snipe Fix Kit adds that adjustment, installs in an afternoon, and comes with a 30 day money back guarantee.
It also costs a fraction of a cutterhead, which matters if you have already spent the money on one and still have the problem.