Greetings chaps. I was wanting information about a WF & John Barnes horizontal Hone. I am at present working this beast full time. From the look of the machine I would say it was WW2 vintage. Basic specs are 12" center height about 150 " stroke. It has a very neat drive box which is as follows. Electric motor (not original) driving a 4 groove 2 foot dia fly wheel. This shaft goes through the Box and has a spline on the end. Another shaft also with a spline is about 9 inches from the first and is a driven shaft. Connecting these two shafts there is 12 sets of matching gears of different diameters. This is how you get different hone shaft revolutions. this driven shaft has a steel worm and a bronze worm wheel about 18" in Diameter. The gear box and hone bar are propelled length wise by a 4" Hydraulic cylinder under the machine
My Boss thinks it is a horizontal borer The present job is 12" Dia bore finished size 1" wall thickness and 3 yards long. But I have to take out .065 thous and achieve a mirror finish with a .002 thou tolerance. This takes about 2 days.
I am into Casting Iron and the bed of the beast fair takes my breath away. Before you ask for photos My scanner is down and the local wood show put a severe strain on the fiscal situation. But all in good time.
Yours 4-6-4.

4-6-4,

When my dad was alive, he used to retro-fit and build tooling for several Barnes hones at a company in Houston. I know of at least four shops in the Houston area that have Barnes type honing equipment in their shops. This particular shop he did work for has several with 12-15 foot stroke and a couple with 20-30 foot strokes. Most of these hones started out with that splined shaft youre talking about. He was making two to three bushings for that splined shaft every quarter. That's how fast they were wearing them out. The splined shaft got replaced with a electric motor/gear box drive mounted on the carriage driving the honing head. Most of these shops use honing heads from General Hone here in the States. With the right stones and good honing oil, that .065" taking out shouldn't take no more than than 4 to 6 hours to do. If that hone is not screaming when it is stroking, its not cutting!

Ken