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Let’s talk a little bit about Flex-Hones®. You may know them as ball hones or dingleberry hones, grape hones … gotta love creative machinists!
By definition, the flex-hone® is a resilient, flexible, honing tool with a soft cutting action. So what does that mean? It means that flex-hones® adjust to the cylinder surface. That’s why they’re used after the cylinder has been sized with rigid honing stones.
It’s not as easy as it sounds. Choosing the right brake lathe cutting tip, that is. There are a few questions you need to ask yourself before you decide on the tip you need. Keep reading to learn more.
We get a lot of questions about Flex-Hones® and Ultra-Finish Plateau Hones so in this week’s Tech Tip I’ll give a quick explanation on the differences between them.
The most common Flex-Hone® is made of silicon-carbide. This is a silicon-carbide ball, affixed to a flexible nylon filament, connected to a drive shaft, driven by a portable drill. They are used to hone cast iron cylinders. Silicon-carbide is a strong, blocky abrasive that wears well and removes material quickly.
Over the past two weeks, we’ve covered Glass Bead and Airless Blaster Parts Cleaning. Today, we’re wrapping up our series on cleaning media with Parts Tumbler Media.
Parts Tumblers
The parts tumbler does a good job of cleaning smaller components. Some advantages of parts tumbling are:
As with glass beading and the airless blaster, care must be used to avoid damaging machined surfaces.
Today we’re starting a short series on the various cleaning media available to the engine builder. We’ll be giving you tips and tricks for using each media type, including glass beads, tumbler media and airless blaster media. Check out the Goodson Tech Tip of the Week for the rest of the series.
One of the most widely used cleaning media is the glass bead. Glass beads are primarily used to blast engine components free of carbon base soils and oxidation. Blasting is done in a cabinet to contain and recycle the media being used.
We’re taking a little side trip with this week’s Tech Tip of the Week. Here in Minnesota where Goodson is headquartered, it’s hot. Yes, Minnesota, land of the Ten Thousand Lakes and just as many snowbanks is HOT. How hot? Today, June 10, 2021 we're sitting at 95 degrees with a "feels like" temperature of 104. And like we say around here, it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. I think we have about 96% humidity too.
This heat wave we’re having got me to thinking about all of the guys working in the heat. I know that a lot of shops don’t have air conditioning and I have yet to see an air conditioned race track so we decided its time to do a tech tip about dealing with the heat. There is a lot of summer left and with heat like we’ve been having already, it’s important for you to take care of the most important thing in your shop – YOU.