Are spring lock washers both real and fake?
Fake spring lock washer made from the ordinary mild steel, not from spring steel. Therefore, there is no feature that can lock the threads to prevent the loosening of screws or nut heads.
To be able to understand the sentence above. We must first understand how the threadlock works on spring washers made from genuine spring steel. (After this, let's separate them into real spring rings and artificial spring rings.)
The spring washer has a locking mechanism to prevents the screw and nut threads from loosening, as follows:
Using force to bounce:
When tightening screws or nuts The spring washer is compressed between the nut/screw head and the workpiece. which generally, the assembler will tighten until the spring washer is compressed until it is flat against the workpiece.
which if it is a genuine spring washer, the spring will exert pressure to bounce back. This creates friction between the threads of the screw/nut and the threaded holes on the workpiece. This friction causes the screw threads and nut heads to clash. Helps prevent the thread from loosening.
If you think about it the other way, the assembler uses fake spring washers instead of real spring washer. Thread friction caused by spring washer will not occur. Makes the screw threads and nut loosen easily.
Consideration for using this spring washer will apply it for the areas that must be constant vibration, to prevent loose nuts to not to cause an accident in the work area.
Watch a VDO testing the differences between genuine spring washer and fake spring rings, to get a clear picture here.
https://youtu.be/surQkNeDIS0?si=xt8CifVcWlahqVb_