Honing

Honing: A Machining Process

Honing

Honing is a finishing process used in inside diameters of parts that can consistently produce incredibly high finishes even when finish boring or internal grinding fails. Because honing utilizes rectangular grinding stones instead of circular grinding wheels the honing process can be utilized to correct flaws left by other machining processes.

Some of the conditions the honing process may improve include:

1. Out of round internal diameters
2. Bellmouth shaped IDs
3. Waviness of a bore
4. Undersized IDs
5. IDs that have a taper
6. Removal of boring marks
7. Removal of reamer chatter
8. Correction of the misalignment of two opposing holes.

Honing does not require that the part is moved or rotated by power and this helps to eliminate locating errors. The hone is typically driven by a central shaft and moves forwards and back so bending is not an issue and tapering of the ID does not occur during honing. The disadvantages of honing primarily involve slow production speeds and it is imperative that the previous machining operation left enough “meat” or material behind for the hone to clean the ID properly with the desired results.