Flex Hone for boring out SF bodies

[tx101]

Has anyone used a Flex Hone to bore out the body of a SF light to accept
18650 Li-Ion cells or to level out the step inside some SF battery tubes

I remember years ago using a Flex Hone to bore out a Paintball gun barrel.
So I guess this would also work for battery tubes.

If anyone has used this method which size and which grit of Flex Hone will do the job ???

 

[kramer5150]

It looks more like a finish / deburr operation than something to remove a large quantity of material. I have never tried though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTqHQ5b4FAU

 

[will]

It looks more like a finish / deburr operation than something to remove a large quantity of material. I have never tried though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTqHQ5b4FAU

Honing is exactly that - used to finish off the metal. You can get the rough stones and that will remove material, very slowly..... but the best bet is to have the material removed on a lathe.

 

[tx101]

Thanks for the info guys, it was just an idea.

 

[FredM]

anyone know of a cheap boring bar that would do the job?

 

[precisionworks]

BRM has been making the Flex-Hone for 50 years, and it does an excellent job for final finishing cylinders -- where you need to remove a few ten thousandths of an inch.

http://www.brushresearch.com/flex-hone.php

Using one to enlarge a bore can be done, but will take a long time. The most common way to enlarge a bore is with either a reamer (which can be driven with a slow speed drill) or a boring bar (which requires a lathe or a mill).

anyone know of a cheap boring bar that would do the job?

Enco P/N 375-2314, $18.33.

As long as you have a lathe, or a mill with a boring head, this will do a nice job.

 

[LuxLuthor]

Despite pretty much the same advice, after asking about this very subject, I figured I would try it anyway...as well as using the KD Brake Hone to try and enlarge Mag C/D tubes enough to avoid having tri/quad bore done. I bought 4 different Flex Hones, including the most coarse grit and tried using them for this purpose.

The KD Brake Hone (with 3 coarser stones) worked 10-20 times better than Flex-Hone, but still took a long time. (Doing KD Hone under trickle of water to eliminate aluminum dust, keep stone from getting clogged, and keeping tube cool was the only way to go).

The Flex-Hones pretty much turned out to be a waste of money for this purpose. Suffice it to say that since my experiments, the last xxx number of bored mags I needed were either done by FiveMega or Jesus Hernandez and were worth paying for.

 

[tx101]

Thanks Lux for sharing your experience.

 

[merlocka]

Just FYI - I have been wanting to bore out my 6P for a long time. Considered many DYI options, but just didn't want to botch it.

I finally today just searched for local machine shops. First one I stopped by, the machinist was like "wow that's cool". I brought in a 6P, 2 TNC extensions, and an AW 18650. Measured it all up to make sure he had the tolerances OK, and told me to pick it up tomorrow.

Quoted a 15 min job, charging $15 to bore out all 3 pieces. It sounded like times were tough, and they were accepting any/all jobs. I can't wait to pick it up! So FWIW, it might be worth it to check your local shops.

Now... I need to get a new P91

I also need to think about any other work I need done...