There has long been a popular belief that this was a deliberate feature of the design, to assemble aluminium aircraft without overtightening the fasteners. There is no good evidence for this suggestion, and the property is not mentioned in the original patents.
Philips shape is the next step up from a flat head. Its just a double flat head sort of. It self centers and only requires 2 tooling motions if they are being ground.
The dont overtighten thing has always seemed like a weird misunderstanding that all bit types could be designed to do that.
It wasn’t an intentional feature. But, when they realized it happened it became a feature that they thought was useful.
There are a lot of things like that, where something has a design quirk that people come to rely on. The quirk is so useful that people assume it was designed to work that way intentionally, but sometimes it was just coincidence.
From Wikipedia:
Huh…well guess I was wrong. Thanks for the info!
Acknowledging own error and thanking the counterparty for pointing it out with no sign of spite? Fucking witchcraft! How do I acquire this power?
Well, when you’re wrong a lot you get plenty of practice.
I mean you just gotta try it I guess. You know what’s more fun that being right? Learning something and then being right.
You absolute legend.
Philips shape is the next step up from a flat head. Its just a double flat head sort of. It self centers and only requires 2 tooling motions if they are being ground.
The dont overtighten thing has always seemed like a weird misunderstanding that all bit types could be designed to do that.
It wasn’t an intentional feature. But, when they realized it happened it became a feature that they thought was useful.
There are a lot of things like that, where something has a design quirk that people come to rely on. The quirk is so useful that people assume it was designed to work that way intentionally, but sometimes it was just coincidence.
Sounds like Hyrum’s Law.