DJ-20 Blade guard spring

[Brian Penning]

Just finished up assembling my new DJ-20 -works great and had very little problems putting it together.
Is there any way to adjust/reduce the spring tension in the red guard assy? It's a bit tough to push the wood through and it really slams into the fence.
TIA

[Doug Shepard]

If it's the same type of porkchop type guard as most, there's a slotted post that slips inside a spring down through the table. You can probably push the fence back all the way then hold onto the guard while you raise it up a bit then unwind it a few turns to relax the spring a bit.

[Wally Alexander]

On my DJ20 there is an allen screw that holds the tension on the spring. If you loosen the allen screw you'll relieve the tension on the spring. Then just manually turn the spring housing clockwise, with the guard against the fence, until you have sufficient pressure and retighten the set screw. It may take a few tries to get it to your desired tension.

Wally

[Tom Esh]

The trick is to get just enough tension to pull it against the fence, and no more. With a typical pork chop guard, friction in the pivot (just a crude and often sticky aluminum-on-steel sleeve arrangement) is the culprit that requires the heavy spring. It usually helps to first pop the thing apart and grease up that pivot.

[Peter Quinn]

My DJ-20 has an allen set screw in the post and another visible from the top of the guard. You can adjust the tension with the visible screw using an allen wrench and hold that setting with the set screw. Pretty good design really. Don't know if the new ones are the same?