Lock nut reusability?

[Sofa]

First off, let me give my praise to lock nuts right now, I use them on my seat bolts, (seat post and handles) and on my main bearing caps.

I highly recommend them, no need for loctite, and they simply don't undo until you want them to.

They look like normal nuts with a foggy/white plastic coating inside. They are 1/4" and you can buy a box for dirt cheap.

I have also replaced the stock bearing bolts on my uni's with hardware store ones. These are 1/4" with a herxagon head, 11mm socket type. I believe they are an inch and a half, and the top half inch has no threading.

What I like about these, is that they will bend inside of the main bearing cap, and not snap. I have had bent ones (realistically, they only bend a tiny bit). I have had the stock ones snap before, and that sucks. I have not noticed any unusual wear and tear in the holes by using these bendable bolts, but they are the only things I will use again. (unless a new frame would not allow them)

Anyways, back to the point of my thread: once you undo a lock washer, can it still be used as a secure means of securing the pieces? Or do the threads cutting through them the first time make them a one time use only item?

- I am undoing them or even bothering to look at them after months of use, by the way

[onetrack]

I agree, locknuts are awesome. They are used alot on skateboards due to their resistance to vibration. from my experience, locknuts loose effect gradualy from stress and threading/unthreading.

I have a semcycle, I put thicker bolts through the bearing housings and instead of locknuts, I put two regular nuts on each bolt and just tighten them against each other (it makes things faster).

mike