-17-
To begin the adjustment you must loosen the two #10-32 Screws. Use your 5/32” Allen Hex Nut Wrench to
loosen the two screws about 1 turn each.
Use your hand to turn the knurled thumb-turn adjustment knob about 1 full turn - viewed from the front of the
machine you will turn the knob to your LEFT.
Secure the two matched key blanks - one in each vise jaw. Please note: Clamp the keys into the vise jaws
with about 1/32” gap between the bottom shoulder of the key and the left-side edge of the vise jaws.
DO NOT
bottom shoulder the keys into the vises - there may be a small radius in the corner of the key blank’s blade and
the bottom shoulder area. Clamping in this area may ANGLE the key blank in the vise and throw off your ad-
justment.
With the keys clamped in the vises and with the stylus adjusted forward about 1 turn - carefully release the car-
riage and position it so the key in the left vise jaw LIGHTLY contacts the stylus about in the middle of the key
blank’s blade.
Observe that the cutter wheel missed the key blank in the right vise by carefully turning the cutter
BACK-
WARDS
by hand - the cutter teeth should miss the key blank blade. The reason for turning the cutter back-
wards is to prevent any cutter teeth from removing material off the key blank’s blade before you make your ad-
justments. Turning the cutter backwards will bump the key blank without cutting it - if the stylus was not adjust-
ed forward enough to miss the key blank.
Upon verifying that the cutter wheel misses the key blank – you may switch ON your key machine.
Take the 1” x 4” piece of writing paper you made earlier and hold one end of it between the spinning cutter
wheel and the blade of the key blank.
Use your hand to slowly and carefully back off on the knurled adjustment knob – at the same time we recom-
mend that you slowly move the 1” x 4” piece of paper from side to side along the blade of the key blank to as-
sist you in detecting when the cutter wheel’s teeth first contact the paper. When the cutter wheel first contacts
the paper the paper will be shaved almost without any sound – you must back off the stylus very slowly for this
to work.
NOTE: Use the knurled knob as a “clock” to measure how much you are moving the stylus. One full turn of the
knurled knob is about .035” (35 thousandths). There are about 80 knurls around the edge of the knob. 1 knurl
is less than ¼ thousandth of an inch. 10 knurls is a little over 4 thousandths (.004”).
Backing off the stylus in 1/8 turn increments will speed up the process considerably, 10 knurls at a time – sliding
the piece of paper across the front of the cutter wheel after each 1/8 turn will establish a simple routing and
make the job less tedious to perform.
Once you have the cutter wheel touching the paper you may slow down the procedure to very small increments,
1 knurl at a time - each time moving the piece of paper from side to side in front of the spinning cutter wheel.
Stop when the piece of paper is cut through to the last few fibers. You have now accurately adjusted the depth
of cut on your key machine.
Tighten the two #10-32 Screws with your 5/32” Allen Hex Wrench – moderate tightness should be enough. See
figure 18.
Verify that tightening the two screws did not alter the adjustment by switching ON the machine and verifying that
the cutter wheel just “ticks” the blade of the key blank. We recommend moving the machine’s “stick-shift” lever
very slightly to the right – and at the same time listening to the cutter wheel for the very faint “ticking” sound of
the cutter wheel teeth barely grazing the key blank. DO NOT go back and forth over the same spot! If you use
the same spot more than once your stylus will burnish a spot on the key blank that is ever so slightly lower than
the rest of the key blank.
Switch OFF the key machine.
