Thanks Orestis and Sab! Having Mondays off is great that way Sab, but I notice tonight that I also need Wednesdays off. In fact, astronomers shouldn't have to work - our appreciation of the universe should be enough!
Orestis, as Sab says I use a V jig to hold both ends of the collimator steady while I rotate it and mark out the path of the spot on a piece of paper ideally about 5 m away. Then tweak the screws to make the circle it makes as small as possible.
You will need to check the position of the secondary under the focuser before using a laser and I agree with Sab that a cheshire eyepiece is the best way to do this. I suspect that you won't want to wait til you can get your paws on one of these and you may find that using a plastic cap in with a small hole it the centre might do a passable job in the meantime. Some people use a 35mm film container. I used one of these from. But a cheshire is the way to go for good results. $59 at Bintel. Once the secondary is centred, you can adjust its tilt. Put the collimator in the focuser and turn it on. Make sure that the beam is not bouncing out of the end of the scope by passing a piece of paper over the end of the scope. If the mirrors are way out, the beam reflected off the primary may miss the secondary and come out of the scope. If it does, make sure you know where it is doing that so you can keep out of the way. Once you're sure that you're safe, get in front of the scope and look at the spot on the primary. The secondary holder has 3 screws on it which tilt the mirror against a spring. adjust these until the spot is in the middle of the primary. This means the secondary is properly aligned. Then go to the back of the scope. the Collimator will have a little 45 degree screen on it with a spot in the centre. The beam reflected off the primary and secondary back into the focuser will hit this screen. Adjust the screws at the back of the scope to get this to hit the little hole in the middle of the screen. When it does this, it will disappear like a little eclipse and you're collimated. The collimating screws are the ones with the springs. The 3 without springs are locking screws and a lot of people find they just muck up the collimation so leave them loose. You might find them helpful though. Use the springed screws to set the collimation then very carefully tighten the others just a tad and make sure the dot stays over the hole in the screen. Over time this will get much easier and once your secondary is in the right spot you only need to use the laser to adjust the inclination of the mirrors. You might Bob's knobs are good as you can adjust all the screws with your fingers. Putting stronger springs in (Bob's knobs provide them, but you might pick up good ones at a hardware store - I did for my 12" GSO) makes the whole thing more reliable.
Like a lot of people, I found this web site video very helpful
http://www.andysshotglass.com/Collimating.html
Hope this helps.