Plateau Finishing: Flex-Hone® Applications

Plateau finishing removes the peaks produced by prior honing and machining operations to create a flat, smooth, cross-hatch surface.  It removes ridges of rough, torn, jagged, and folded metal that can affect the performance of machined components. By eliminating elevated surface areas, plateau hones allow rings and seals to seat without damaging their edges. The cross-hatch pattern of a plateau finish also aids in lubrication and retention, reduces seepage in hydraulic and pneumatic applications, and promotes longer seal life.   

Cylinder Honing and Piston Rings
Traditionally, engine cylinders were honed mainly with rigid hones and honing stones. These hard abrasives left peaks that were worn away by wide, high-tension piston rings that also deposited metal shavings in engine oil. Wider piston rings wore more quickly, caused greater cylinder wear, and contributed to higher automotive emissions, too. Today’s narrower, lower-tension piston rings last longer and are pre-lapped, but can’t handle the abrading that old-style piston rings could withstand. Fortunately, the Flex-Hone® tool from Brush Research Manufacturing (BRM) is perfect for plateau honing.  

The Flex-Hone® Advantage
The Flex-Hone® tool removes just the right amount of material to achieve a plateau finish. Its flexible nylon strands are coated with abrasive globules that conform to an engine cylinder’s surface to create a consistent cross-hatch pattern. Unlike rigid hones and honing stones, the Flex-Hone® is designed for improving and refining surface finish – not for heavy-duty material removal. BRM’s flexible honing tool removes only the elevated surface areas (peaks), and only the rough, torn, and folded metal left by prior operations such as honing or machining.

Ball Hones vs. Abrasive Nylon Brushes
The Flex-Hone®tool has been called by many names over the years including Ball hone, dingleberry, grape, bead, bottle brush hone, glaze buster, or glaze breaker hone.  To avoid confusion it is best to remember that the Flex-Hone® tool is the original and should not be confused with an abrasive nylon brush.  There is physically more abrasive present at the tool-cylinder wall interface with the Flex-Hone.  The ball style Flex-Hone tool provides 95% pure raw grain abrasive at the point of contact while abrasive nylon tools have abrasive uniformly distributed throughout their filament, sometimes as little as 20% by volume.

For true plateau finish honing, there is only one right choice – the Flex-Hone® from Brush Research Manufacturing.