Subcontract Honing
Established in 1963, Apperley Honing have a plethora of commissioned honing machines operating in the subcontract honing department capable of tube honing, vertical honing and hand honing, from small handheld components to multi-tonne parts.
A wealth of Experience.
The honing of complex machined components and expensive exotic materials must be trusted to experts . Apperley Honing has specialised in contract honing for over 55 years and throughout that time we have honed just about every bore in every material imaginable. With over 20 types of honing machine and with tooling and gauging that covers diameters from 3.0mm to 400mm diameter with increased capacity beyond 400mm to 750mm on application, we have the capacity to hone lengths up to 12 metres. This combination of experience and equipment means that if you have particular/specialist requirements for an application, the chances are that Apperley has seen it and can machine it to your exact specification.
Realising that honing is often one of the very last operations to be carried out on machined parts we ensure that our production schedules have built in flexibility to account for components that arrive after their scheduled dates, or to complete urgent jobs on a same day basis*
Tube Honing
Tube honing used to be all about steel tubes for hydraulic cylinders however now the majority of Apperley Honing’s work is with aluminium, titanium, Inconel, nimonics and hard chrome materials.
Experienced operators are able to apply their specialist honing skills to successfully achieve specific wall thicknesses. Using ultrasonic inspection equipment the wall thickness of random length tubes can be reduced down to 1.00mm.
Apperley Honing have developed a unique process called “Contourhoning” which focuses on producing a superfine surface finish totalling eradicating the weld bead and orange peel that can remain in drawn tubes.
With several 6 metre stroke machines in the subcontract department, extra long tubes, up to 12 metres long, can be honed from both ends, producing an invisible blend whilst maintaining an H8 tolerance and a 0.15µm surface finish.
Hand Honing
Smaller components are still generally honed on bench hone type machines, with the components stroked back and forth either by hand or in fixtures, hence the term “hand honing”. Experienced honing operators will select the correct tooling and use our specialist abrasives best suited for the job.
Large production parts with specialist fixtures can be set on automatic CNC controlled honing machines. For long running contracts, dedicated machines and gauging can remain set and ready, enabling operators to run the machines as soon as parts arrive whilst maintaining consistency and quality.
Geared up to the challenges and lead times of the Motorsport and Aerospace industry, production capabilities can include a "same day service"* as well as a 2 working day and 5 working day turnaround service produced in accordance with AS9100 and 9001.
Operators work with high performance alloys with blind ends and achieve exceptionally precise tolerances, round and parallel to 2 microns with a surface finish of 0.05µm.
Vertical Honing.
CNC and traditional “nodding donkeys” honing machines work alongside each other with specialist tooling to produce intricate polishing of one off complex castings or large production batches.
Skilled operators can achieve different cross hatch angles and complex surface finish topographies which can be verified using the latest computer analysis software.
The large range of vertical machines are capable of producing components round and parallel to 5 microns with a surface finish of 0.05µm.
Please don’t hesitate to contact our sales team on 01386 630100 or sales@apperleyhoning.co.uk and one of our team will be happy to assist you.