I wanted to build a jig for my table saw and it took me a while to remove the riving knife. I couldn’t find anywhere online any information on how to do it and a few DW745 images I realised ther are a few different versions of this mechanism.
At the beginning I thought I could just pull the riving knife up, after unscrewing the bolt on the side. It became apparent that it wouldn’t come off that easily. I had to unscrew the holder (four screws in a 2×2 formation). These four screws were a pain to remove and took a few attempts with different tools.
I did managed to remove the screws in the end and got the riving knife out. It looks like there is a latch mechanism to prevent the riving knife flying out if the side bolt gets lose. This mechanism is quite simple: there is a hole on the body of the riving knife and a peg on a spring mechanism on the holder.
You can see the peg/latch mechanism in the photo below. It’s a little rectangle block with a little round peg on the lower left corner. The round peg locks the riving knife in place. The rectangle block is on a spring and pushes against the riving knife.
I guess the way to remove the riving knife is to push a very thin metal strip on the side of the riving knife that’s near the motor. That will push the latching mechanism in and the tiny peg will be out of the hole. Then you can pull the riving knife up.
I hope this post helps someone with this problem!