Flex-Honing: Applications and Industries

Flexible hones are used to blend edges, improve surface finish, and remove cut, torn, and folded metal. Unlike other honing tools, they have “balls” – abrasive globules mounted to nylon filaments – that provide a soft cutting action. These flexible “ball hones” feature different types of abrasives, but always use a low-temperature abrading process to produce a controlled surface condition.

BRM's Flex-Hone Tools have been used to quiet the brake rotors in Cadillacs, and to deglaze and refinish the walls of engine cylinders for decades. Their applications extend beyond the automotive industry and include uses in agricultural, commercial, manufacturing, military, and transportation applications. Part of what makes Fex-Hones so “flexible” is that they can be used in any rotating spindle. More importantly, these honing tools have a unique construction that allows them to be self-centering, self-aligning to the bore, and self-compensating for wear.

In high-level production environments, Flex-Hones are used in machining centers. But they can also be used by an at-home hobbyist with a hand drill. Here’s how flexible honing is used across a variety of surface finishing, deburring, and edge blending applications.

Agriculture

• Farm tools and equipment


• Overhaul

Automotive

• Gas, diesel and motorcycle engines


• Piston cylinders and piston pin bores


• Valve guides and valve seating


• Crankshaft oil passage holes


• Cam shaft bearing bores


• Brake rotors and brake cylinders (wheel)


• Clutch and brake master cylinders

Commercial

• Lawn maintenance products


• Firearms (barrels and chambers)


• Golf club re-shafting


• Musical instruments

Industrial and Manufacturing

• Pneumatic, hydraulic, and hydraulic ram cylinders


• Hydraulic valve bodies and valve guides


• Hydraulic motor bodies


• Air compressors


• Reactor tube sheets


• Surface finishing of boiler components


• Compressed air tool bodies


• Finishing of stainless steel tubing


• Rod seals

Military and Defense

• Jet engines and aircraft missile systems


• Fire weapons


• Marine motors

Transportation

• Aviation


• Aircraft and helicopter engines


• Rail transportation


• Hydraulic landing gear

Have you used the Flex-Hone Tool in an application or industry that’s not on our list? If so, please let us know. We’d like to hear from you!