Important Safety Precautions:

**CAUTION:** Ensure the machine is OFF, unplugged, and fully discharged before attempting any maintenance to avoid electrical hazards.

1. Over-Cranking the Blade at Full Height:
   • When raising the blade fully, be careful not to over-tighten the handle. If the blade is forced too far up, it can cause both the blade and riving knife to cant off to one side, making proper alignment impossible.
   • Try backing off slightly from max height and then rechecking the alignment.
     
2. Aligning with the Blade Raised – Using the Set Screws for Fine Adjustments:
   • Keep the blade fully raised when aligning the riving knife.
   • The riving knife mounting block has four set screws that act as a leveling system—these screws allow you to adjust the knife’s position precisely.
   • To adjust the tip of the riving knife: Focus on the bottom two set screws in the block. Adjusting these will shift the tip of the knife either left or right in relative to the blade.
   • To move the entire knife left or right for alignment with the blade: Use the upper two set screws to fine-tune its lateral position.
   • When adjusting, check that the riving knife stays in line with the blade by comparing both the lower section and the tip of the blade and riving knife.
3. Checking for Knife Movement During Blade Adjustment:
   • Slowly raise and lower the blade using the crank handle and watch both the blade and riving knife.
   • If the knife shifts side to side as you change the direction of raising or lowering, there may be excess play in the mounting bracket holding the riving knife in place. If you could verify if the knife has any slop or movement, then this would help us further understand the situation on why the knife is falling out of alignment. 

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This is an example photo to demonstrate a riving knife that is out of alignment and how to fix it. In the example, the alignment issue is due to the screws closest to the blade not being screwed in enough causing a narrower gap on one side of the riving knife bracket. On the opposite side, there is a wider gap because those screws are threaded in more. The below photo summarizes what must be done and the next photos demonstrate the issue and what can be done to correct it.

The next two photos demonstrate the issue where the riving knife is angled to the right of the blade. There is a visible gap between the straight edge and the teeth of the blade on both sides displaying the misalignment and the goal is to close this gap so that the riving knife is centered to the teeth.

This photo shows the gap on the left side with a straight edge against the body of the knife and against a tooth on the blade. 

Likewise, the opposite side also has the gap indicating the blade is angled to the right too much and is out of alignment.

1. To fix this, loosen both the upper and lower cap screws in the center of the bracket (highlighted in green in Fig. 27 diagram) and then slightly loosen both the upper and lower set screws on the side shown in the photo at the rear of the bracket(facing from the front of the saw) so that there is no tension on them and leave them slightly loose until finishing adjusting the upper and lower set screws at the front of the bracket (closest to the blade) in the next step.

2. Then tighten both the upper and lower set screws a quarter to half turn to widen the gap that was previously more narrow and check with a straight edge to see if the riving knife is starting to straighten out with the teeth of the blade. 

3. Once it appears aligned with the straight edge against the riving knife and the teeth of the blade, check both sides to side if there is a bigger gap on one side or the other with the goal of getting the knife as centered as possible. 

4. If you go a little too far in tightening the set screws in step 2. then the riving knife should now have a bit too much of a gap on the opposite side and this can be fixed by backing the set screws closest to the blade out about an 1/8th to a 1/4 turn counter-clockwise. Minor adjustments are better with this and be sure to check with a straight edge after each minor adjustment. 

Now it is aligned and you can see from both photos that the knife is now centered with the teeth of the blade. 

5. Now that the riving knife is aligned, tight the upper and lower cap screws in the center of the mounting bracket that were loosened in step 1. (highlighted in green in Fig. 27 diagram) and then check again that the riving knife is still aligned with the blade. 

This completes the adjustments and the riving knife should now be aligned with the blade.