Barrel Hone

mooncoon

mooncoon

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From time to time I have rough shotgun barrels that I want to smooth up. There is a 3 armed cylinder hone fairly commonly available but it only goes down to 3/4 inch or 10 guage. There is also a 2 armed hone that I think you can get from Brownell's. Replacement stones for them are not easy to find and I also don't feel that those type of hones put very much pressure on the stones, while in use. For those reasons I decided to try making a hone using some large cylinder hone stones that I could buy. I turned a piece of brass about 40 to 50 thou under bore diameter and milled a 1/4" wide slot in it (lengthwise) and milled shallow holes in the slot for coil springs to sit in. I started to grind the metal parts off of the stones and to my good fortune, they pop off within seconds presumably because the vibration breaks the glue bond. Screwed the brass body on to a piece of 5/16 rod and turned the contraption with an electric drill. It seems to work fairly well and I think that the coil springs probably put more pressure on the stone than the smaller 2 or 3 armed varieties. Now I have to look around for a coarser more aggressive stone to reduce deeper pits a bit. Also should mention that I use it with cutting oil

cheers mooncoon

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Great idea. I have little doubt that will do a better job than the commercial hone.

Re: the Brownells hones: For what it's worth I've got a Brownells hone and although I don't have it in front of me, it struck me having a decent spring. Feels much like honing a cylinder block; so far I've opened three shotgun chokes and use this hone to polish the muzzle after reaming, with decent results. I'll have to look at it but the smaller stones for honing brake cylinders/small engines looked like they should fit (again it isn't in front of me) and if not then yes, it's a Brownell's "stock order" thing since shipping would kill it.

The ability to use longer cylinder stones in yours makes also it much more practical for doing the entire barrel. I also like how your design should keep it parallel to the bore.
 
I had the ambition one time to polish the chambers on a couple of double guns that would be used for Cowboy Action. I found a small three -stone hone assembly at an automotive tool store of some kind, Proto I think was the brand name, and it fit inside a 12 ga chamber just right. I first tried it in an old unusable barrel for a test and good thing I did. the first test was with "light oil" oiled chamber & stones turned with a good electric drill...the results were very disappointing, more of a "scuffing" than polishing. The next try was with a high speed air die grinder and heavy motor oil. don't know if the speed or different oil made the difference but it sure did work good...those two doubles will shuck hulls like glass now.
 
What I did a few years ago was to take a length of wooden dowel and cut a slot into one end . I then put a piece of emery cloth in the slot and chucked the other end in a cordless drill. I polished it working up to a 400 grit and it turned out a lot nicer than I thought it would of.
 
To answer two or three questions in one post

I have (somewhere) both the 2 and 3 armed small hones and the stones appear to be identical but when last I looked a few years ago, I could not find replacement stones. I have used abrasive tape and oil in a wooden dowel spun with a drill and while it works to a point, the tape only lasts a couple of minutes before being worn out. In my case, I milled a slot in the middle of the piece of wood, for the abrasive tape to pass through. That system also does not put a lot of pressure with the abrasive on the barrel. The brass hone bodies are somewhat bore specific. Somewhat in the sense that if I allow .050" clearance maximum between the brass body and the bore, that is also the range of bores over which I can use that particular hone. On the other hand, because most of the guns that I work on are antique, there is some range in bore diameter rather than a series of specific guages. I also suspect it may be borderline if I can go as small as 20 guage with that style of hone. My thought on finding a coarser more aggressive stone insert is that I would probably have to use the current stone grit to polish the bore after the coarser stone. Should also mention that I also have a "nubble brush" which seems to be hiding from me right now :>( It is like a miniature chimney brush with little abrasive beads on the end of each bristle. They appear to be useful only for polishing the bore and usually if I am thinking of cleaning up a rough bore on an antique, the nubble brush is not nearly aggressive enough to do much good

cheers mooncoon
 
fingers284 said:
I had the ambition one time to polish the chambers on a couple of double guns that would be used for Cowboy Action. I found a small three -stone hone assembly at an automotive tool store of some kind, Proto I think was the brand name, and it fit inside a 12 ga chamber just right. I first tried it in an old unusable barrel for a test and good thing I did. the first test was with "light oil" oiled chamber & stones turned with a good electric drill...the results were very disappointing, more of a "scuffing" than polishing. The next try was with a high speed air die grinder and heavy motor oil. don't know if the speed or different oil made the difference but it sure did work good...those two doubles will shuck hulls like glass now.
Click to expand...

I know the brake cylinder hones I had say 25 years ago I'm certain would have squeezed down enough to get into a 12 gauge; back then folks (inlcuding myself) were rebuilding cars/trucks from the 50s/60s enough that parts were even still on the shelf and some of those cylinders were pretty small.

However before I bought Brownells' hone (which I'm SURE is nothing more than a brake cylinder hone) I tried to find a brake cylinder hone that would compress small enough, but at least in town here (admittedly not very good selection) the only "brake cylinder hones" I could find were nowhere near to squeezing in the bore or chamber. I think hardly anyone rebuilds wheel cylinders anymore so these so-called "brake cylinder" hones they sell now, are more than likely intended for small engine cylinders.
 
Very nice job mooncoon. I spent 35 years as a custom machinist but I no longer have access to that kind of machinery and, I would guess that most people have neither the skill or, the machinery to do such a job. However, there are still lots of these hones available on ebay, for a reasonable price. They may not be as good as the one mooncoon made but, I would think that they could do the job, in most cases. It seems that the hones smaller than 3/4" are all two stones and the larger ones are three;

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/3-Stone-Brak...703978?hash=item3aaedb322a:g:Q2UAAOSw~gRVuabr
 
Magellann said:
What I did a few years ago was to take a length of wooden dowel and cut a slot into one end . I then put a piece of emery cloth in the slot and chucked the other end in a cordless drill. I polished it working up to a 400 grit and it turned out a lot nicer than I thought it would of.
Click to expand...

Did much the same thing for the chamber of a rolling block in 43 Egyptian that had trouble with extraction. Worked great.
 
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