Looking for honing oil insights

We use our water based grinding coolant (amine based product @5%) in our Sunnen manual hones to remove scratches, size and improve geometry of holes drilled in glass. The coolant seems adequate for harder glass but we are having scratching problems on softer glasses. I am especially interested in the performance of the vegetable based oil performance versus the mineral honing oils versus grinding coolants. I would like to keep mineral oil based lubricants out of my machine sumps. My primary interest is surface finish effects followed by production rate improvement. Resin bond diamond hone stones are used with light pressure and "feathered" final sizing pressure. I am suspicious of the guide shoe dragging on the glass especially early in the honing process. I really appreciate any information you can share regardless of the workpiece material.

Diamond hones on glass are unfamiliar territory for me, not sure what good my advice will be, so take it with a grain of salt. For regular hones on metal, the guide shoe should always be clear of the bore. If it is dragging, file it back a bit. I would think that an oil-based coolant would be better for both finish and tool life, but perhaps some others will chime in. If it's not the shoe and the removed glass is sticking in the hone, that will certainly cause your scratching. If you have to stick with water-based coolant perhaps try a hone formulated with a softer bond so it sheds the dull grit faster along with any lodged glass particles?

Ask Sunnen, they have some excellent people to talk to there for technical advice

Oil will most likely be better but I understand why you want to stay with water. With that in mind tackle the problem one item at a time. First make sure you are using brass guide shoes. The next thing to change would be to up the concentration on your coolant to 10%, that will give you more lubricity for the guide shoes. Then if all else fails change to Sunnen's KG3X honing oil which is a vegetable oil.

Your shoe life will drop with brass shoes and there are other high price alternatives. Before spending the big bucks I recommend investing in brass shoes to sort out the problem.

Thank you.. You folks have given me a few ideas to follow up for which I am most appreciative. Can you identify a competent adviser at Sunnen? The fellow spoken to insisted that the SHO series lubricants were sulfured mineral oils when the product literature clearly states it is a vegetable based lubricant. My confidence level with their product support is not high. Thanks again for the suggestions.

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