Helical Spring Washers?

[Unkel Kunkel]

Probably lots of people know this, but late as usual,  it came as a surprise to me

About this familiar thing: 

 

- Helical spring washer.

How many times have we chased after these darned things.

There is strong evidence , first shown by a chap calked Junkers in 1968 and more recently by NASA and again on a U tube “ Bolt Science “ that they are not much use- indeed .. useless.

Since bolts can even be shown to   loosen  easier and quicker if they are used,  they are not only useless, but it could be argued that they actually are worse  than useless.

Well, that  goes against the grain a bit, doesn’t it ?

[ed.h]

My understanding is that the US military doesn't allow them for many applications. 

I use locknuts instead wherever i can.

Ed

[JohnD]

Given the number of alternatives, Nord, Schnorr, Wave, Rolson, Thackeray, Starlock, etc. Etc. It's probably true that none work very well.    Correct torquing and Nylocs probably best.

John

[DVD3500]

1 minute ago, JohnD said:

" Nord, Schnorr, Wave, Rolson, Thackeray, Starlock, "

Sound like members of a EuroVision band...

[Ian Faulds]

The japanese call nyloc nuts techno nuts, we had a right time explaining what a nyloc was back in the 90s, then the penny dropped ahhh! Techno nut .

 

[Pete Lewis]

on truck manufactutre we dumped all  spring  washers often back to plain washers and plain nuts   around the 1980  all monitored with 

a lot of torque  control and testing   never caused any problems certainly made any torque control more stable .

Pete

[Mjit]

Spring washers do a job - and while they might not do it amazingly they do it very cheaply.  But even in our cars you'll notice they aren't generally used for anything REALLY important.

Want to try and stop the nut/bolt holding the parcel shelf in place rattling undone?  Spring washer, as it 'failing' would just be annoying.
Want to stop the nut/bolt keeping the suspenssion attached to the chassis rattling undone? Nylock, as it 'failing' could be rather terminal.

[Colin Lindsay]

Used on the diff, both on the case and the output shafts.

[DVD3500]

On 14/12/2022 at 11:04, Ian Faulds said:

The japanese call nyloc nuts techno nuts, we had a right time explaining what a nyloc was back in the 90s, then the penny dropped ahhh! Techno nut .

 

I had a similar problem. i was working in marketing and we wanted to have the same pamphlets printed around the world (translated/localized of course). We had meetings and discussed things but the Japanese were way behind.

Turns out when we said "printer" meaning "company that prints" they understood "device that prints" .

We started saying "printing company" and things were clear....

 

[Ian Faulds]

We had some great fun with communication with the japanese. I married a japanese girls, 20 years later still have amusing conversations. 🤣

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Chris A]

when we bought our first house here, ok building constructed in year 10 ( hence its name L'An Dix) of the French revolution calendar, that had never been connected to electricity, plumbing consisted of 1 cold tap sticking out of the wall etc. We met up with our chosen builder to go through the work to be done and had so many problems with the terms and techniques he went off to his merchant and came back with a mass of leaflets for us to study . . .

'O' level French didn't cover the building trade back then 🙄