sunnen AN style stones (2rocks/2guides)

[bentvalves]

the stone will wear faster than the aluminum guide.

is it standard operating procedure to knock the guide down on a beltsander to keep it the same height as the stone?

other than that, I recently learned to switch up the stone orientation regularly to keep the stone wearing from top to bottom more evenly.

anything else I might be missing here?

[modok]

It can go either way. Never is a perfect system. They have really fat guide shoes for roughing and very dainty ones for fine work.

If it needs to wear faster you can narrow the surface contact in that area. This is true of stones and guides.
If it's way off then yes knock down the whole surface, but if it's just tending to wear funny it is better to just reduce the amount of contact area and let it wear itself straight again. You can narrow, bevel, cut grooves, whichever seems to fit.
And also there is oil control. Right where you feed the oil in will wear less, and where you don't will break down faster.

[BillK]

I have had to hit them on the belt sander for sure. I think the consistency of the guide material has changed over the years as I don't remember having to do it as much years ago. And it also varies from set to set One thing that does seem to help is to "rotate" either the shoes or the stones in each set after every three or four cylinders. Just pull the center out and swap either the two stones or the two guides from one side to the other.

[agertz1]

Dumb idea ?
Instead of aluminum guide blocks, maybe sealed bearings and a wiper in front, to squegee grit away from surface of bearing but oil to stones ?

[modok]

They ny, my, gy "keyway' stones are nearly self guiding. I rarely have any shoe trouble with those.

[HDBD]

Years ago I had a AN machine and it was hell but I did produce a good product and used keyway stones, no guides

[bentvalves]

They ny, my, gy "keyway' stones are nearly self guiding. I rarely have any shoe trouble with those.

I have some keyway stones for 2 stroke bore and have been meaning to test them out in a solid hole.

I built a little rack to hold my most used stones right in the hone cabinet and recalibrated my boring bar mic to a fresh new knife.

exciting times!