Honing serves an important purpose of generating specified functional characteristics for surfaces besides removing stock and involves the correction of errors resulting from previous machining operations. This article discusses the process capabilities of honing in terms of bore size, bore shape, and stock removal. It illustrates the uses of air, ring, expanding, plug, and bar gages for automatic size control in power stroking of honing tools. The article provides a short description of various honing processes, such as external honing, gear tooth honing, plateau honing, flat honing, electrochemical honing, and hone forming. It also examines various process parameters in microhoning and concludes with information on the applications of microhoning.

Finishing refers to a wide variety of processes that generally involve material removal in one form or another to generate surfaces with specific geometries, tolerances, and functional or decorative characteristics. This article discusses four major finishing methods, namely, abrasive machining, electropolishing, mass finishing, and shot peening. In each case, it describes subtypes, process variations, and the associated equipment.

Abrasive finishing is a method where a large number of multipoint or random cutting edges are coupled with abrasive grains as a bond or matrix material for effective removal of material at smaller chip sizes. This article provides a broad overview of the various categories of abrasive products and materials, abrasive finishing processes, and the mechanisms of delivering the abrasives to the grinding or machining zone. Abrasive finishing processes, such as grinding, honing, superfinishing, microgrinding, polishing, buffing, and lapping, are discussed. The article presents a brief discussion on abrasive jet machining and ultrasonic machining. It concludes with a discussion on the four categories of factors that affect the abrasive finishing or machining: machine tool, work material, wheel selection, and operational.

This article briefly describes the nomenclature, alignment and geometrical considerations, and functional and application requirements of a die set. The die set consists of the shank, guide posts, guide bushings, the punch, and die holders. The article illustrates plate flatness and parallelism in the die set. The testing for abrasion, seizure, and endurance in the die set are discussed briefly. The article concludes with information on die-set recommendations.

Roller burnishing is a method of working a metal surface to improve its finish and dimensional accuracy and can provide some degree of work hardening. This article discusses the workpiece requirements used for roller burnishing. It illustrates the types of roller burnishing tools, such as internal tool, external tool, and tools for the roller burnishing of tapered holes and circular flat surfaces. The article contains a table that lists typical inside and outside diameter speed and feed rates for roller burnishing tools. It exemplifies typical lubrication techniques and the conditions used in the roller burnishing of magnesium alloy castings. The article reviews fillet rolling that is used to improve fatigue resistance of the materials. It concludes with a discussion on the process considerations for three basic types of bearingizing tools for the finishing of bores: bottoming, semi-bottoming, and through-hole.

This article discusses the classifications, specifications, applications and methods for producing welded and seamless steel tubular products, including pipes and tubes. Common types of pipes include standard pipe, conduit pipe, piling pipe, pipe for nipples, transmission or line pipe, water main pipe, oil country tubular goods, water well pipe, and pressure pipe. Pipes in suitable sizes, and most of the products classified as tubing, both seamless and welded, may be cold finished. Pressure tubes are given a separate classification by both the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) and producers. The term tube covers three groups, including pressure tubes, structural tubing, and mechanical tubing.

Nickel-base alloys can be machined by techniques that are used for iron-base alloys. This article discusses the effects of distortion and microstructure on the machinability of nickel alloys. It tabulates the classification of nickel alloys based on machining characteristics. The article describes the machining operations performed on nickel alloys, such as turning, planing and shaping, broaching, reaming, drilling, tapping and threading, milling, sawing, and grinding. It provides information on the cutting fluids used in the machining of nickel alloys. The article also analyzes nontraditional machining methods that are suitable for shaping high-temperature, high-strength nickel alloys. These include electrochemical machining, electron beam machining, and laser beam machining.

Superabrasives collectively refer to the diamond and cubic boron nitride (CBN) abrasives used in grinding applications. This article discusses the classification of superabrasive wheels according to a variety of sizes and shapes, construction, concentration, and bond systems. It provides information on the applications of the superabrasive wheels depending on the factors of the grinding system. These factors include machine tool variables, work material, wheel selection, and operational factors. The article describes the methods available for superabrasive wheel truing in production grinding operations, namely, stationary tool, powered, and form truings. It reviews the truing methods, such as truing with abrasive wheels and hard ceramics, for batch production. The article explains practical methods available for dressing CBN wheels, namely, abrasive stick, abrasive-jet, slurry, and high-pressure waterjet dressing. It concludes with information on the conditioning process of the CBN wheel.

This article begins with a discussion on the classification of aluminum alloys and the selection of alloy and temper based on machinability. It provides an overview of cutting force and power, tool design and material, and general machining conditions. In addition, the article discusses distortion and dimensional variation and machining problems during the machining of high-silicon aluminum alloy. It also provides information on tool design and material, speed and feed, and the cutting fluid used for various machining processes, namely, turning, boring, planing and shaping, broaching, reaming, tapping, milling, sawing, grinding, honing, and lapping. The article concludes with a discussion on drilling operations in automatic bar and chucking machines and drill presses.

Cutting fluids play a major role in increasing productivity and reducing costs by making possible the use of higher cutting speeds, higher feed rates, and greater depths of cut. After listing the functions of cutting fluids, this article then covers the major types, characteristics, advantages and limitations of cutting and grinding fluids, such as cutting oils, water-miscible fluids, gaseous fluids, pastes, and solid lubricants along with their subtypes. It discusses the factors considered during the selection of cutting fluid, focusing on machinability (or grindability) of the material, compatibility (metallurgical, chemical, and human), and acceptability (fluid properties, reliability, and stability). The article also describes various application methods of cutting fluids and precautions that should be observed by the operator.

This article begins with a discussion on machinability ratings of copper and copper alloys and then describes the factors influencing the machinability ratings. It explains the effect of alloying elements, cold working, and cutting fluid on the machinability of copper and copper alloys. In addition, the article provides a comprehensive discussion on various machining techniques that are employed for machining of copper and copper alloys: turning, planing, drilling, reaming, tapping and threading, multiple operation machining, milling, slitting and circular sawing, power band sawing and power hacksawing, grinding, and honing.

This article discusses the classifications, compositions, properties, advantages, disadvantages, limitations, and applications of the most commonly used methods for surface engineering of carbon and alloy steels. These include cleaning methods, finishing methods, conversion coatings, hot-dip coating processes, electrogalvanizing, electroplating, metal cladding, organic coatings, zinc-rich coatings, porcelain enameling, thermal spraying, hardfacing, vapor-deposited coatings, surface modification, and surface hardening via heat treatment.

Shaping and slotting are used to remove metal from surfaces through the use of a single-point tool supported by a ram that reciprocates the tool in a linear motion against the workpiece. This article discusses the process capabilities of shaping and slotting with respect to the size and configuration of the workpiece. Shaping and slotting machines develop cutting action from a straight-line reciprocating motion between the tool and the workpiece. The article describes the types of shapers such as horizontal shaper and vertical shaper. It briefly discusses the applications of high-speed steel tools and carbide tools for shaping. The article also illustrates the dimensional control of workpieces during shaping. It concludes with a discussion on gear shaping.

The term cast iron designates a group of materials that contain more than one constituent in their microstructure due to excess carbon that result in unique characteristics such as the fracture appearance and graphite morphology. This article discusses the classification of cast iron and the various metallurgical aspects, such as the composition, alloying element, solidification, and graphite morphologies, of different types of cast iron. It describes the physical properties for various cast irons and the influence of microstructure and chemical composition on each property. The article provides a detailed account on thermal properties, conductive properties, magnetic properties, and acoustic properties of cast iron. It also examines heat treatment, namely, stress relieving, annealing, normalizing, through hardening, and surface hardening. The article presents a discussion on the welding, machining and grinding, and coating of the types of cast iron.

This article is a compilation of terms related to surface engineering of irons, steels, and nonferrous metals.

This article discusses the different classes of gears, namely, spur, helical, herringbone, crossed-axes helical, worm, internal, rack, bevel, or face-type. It describes the methods used to cut the teeth of gears other than bevel gears: milling, broaching, shear cutting, hobbing, shaping, and rack cutting. The article also reviews the methods that are used to cut the teeth of bevel gears, such as face mill cutting, face hob cutting, formate cutting, helix form cutting, the Cyclex method, and template machining. The machining methods best suited to specific conditions are discussed. The article presents the factors influencing the choice of cutting speed and cutting fluids. It outlines two basic methods for the grinding of gear teeth: form grinding and generation grinding. The article concludes with information on the gear inspection techniques used to determine whether the resulting product meets design specifications and requirements.

This article describes the benefits that can be achieved by using thermal spray on particular engine parts of an automobile. These include improvement in fuel consumption, wear resistance and bonding, and reduction of oil consumption, exhaust heat loss, and cooling heat loss. Typical engine parts are cylinder blocks, cylinder bores, cast iron cylinder liners, piston rings, connecting rod bearings, turbochargers, engine valve lifters, exhaust system parts, and oxygen sensors. The article also describes the benefits of using thermal spray on transmission parts such as synchronizer rings and torque converters.