Hi Bill, I did a search for Steve and this method and didn't find it. My apologies to Steve if I mis-remembered and to All for not taking pics of the process while in San Diego at dads.
We figure at my dad's rate of use, he may not change knives until 2012 so we knew we didn't need to make anything permanent (although we talked about it, that's just how we are
). Anyway, here's what I did (remember this was my first time doing anything other than reading about this so don't beat me up too bad . . .
- I dropped a knife into the head all the way.
- I set the outfeed table to a height well above this but below what would be a maximum height that I wanted to secure the knife.
- With a knife and the gib in place, I tighten the screws to where the knife is tight enough to stay where I put it, but loose enough to move around with my fingers
- I took a piece of 1/4" glass that was wide enough to span the knives and long enough to set well onto the outfeed table.
- I taped three 3/4" magnets so that they were near the edge of the glass that would protrude past the outfeed table and over the TDC of the head. It can't protrude too far or you can't reach the gib screws.
- I set a few other magnets at the rear of the glass to hold it in place on the outfeed table.
- I loosened the screws a smidgen and the magnets draw the knife up to the glass with a satisfying 'tick' sound.
- I tighten the screws very gently while applying a slight pressure on the glass with my free hand. This seems to have solved the small movement of the knives whilst tightening.
- I continue this tightening until I get to the final pressure I am after.
I did the same procedure with the other two knives and all three ended up even with the outfeed to a degree beyond what my digital gauge would read. I believe there was a large volume of beginners luck involved. I have spent 4 times as much effort aligning a newer Delta jointer that used guide pins on the knives and should have been almost automatic . . . it wasn't. I did not use the glass method on that one but, used a gauge only. Very frustrating.
P.s. did I mention that I LOVE my carbide insert head.