Rottler H85A - Plateau

Section 5 Operating Instructions H85A Manual
www.rottlermfg.com
5-2
Plateau
Plateau surface nishes are required to meet the demands of the modern engine designs and emissions
whether the engine is a standard automotive engine or a performance engine. With today’s ring
specications becoming much more dened the honing operation must be very precise to meet those
specications. Also the use of a surface measuring device able to measure the details of a plateau
nish has become more important. These devices that enable you to measure RpK, RK, Rvk and the
Mr1 and MR2 are readily available and reasonable in costs. Rottler has these devices and has done
a tremendous amount of testing to determine the proper process to use in order to obtain the plateau
nishes required by ring manufacturers. Today’s ring manufacturers’ specify the desired surface nishes
more by applications than by ring materials. Therefore we have developed the following procedures for
the following nishes required.
Blown and Turbo Charged applications:
RpK 8-14 microinch .20-.35 µm
Rk 30-40 microinch .76-1.02 µm
Rvk 50+ microinch 1.27+ µm
Nascar and Prostock applications:
RpK 4-6 microinch .10-.05 µm
Rk 18-22 microinch .46-.59 µm
RvK 28-32 microinch .71-.81 µm
Performance Street and Track (longer life):
RpK 8-10 microinch .20-.25 µm
Rk 25-30 microinch .64-.76 µm
RvK 35-40 microinch .89-1.02 µm
The plateau nish has become very popular. One of its purposes is to minimize the break-in or ring
seating period. A plateau nish involves the use of a roughing abrasive to obtain the Rvk parameters
followed by a ner grit nishing abrasive to obtain the proper RpK value. When the nishing abrasive is
used, only a few strokes are required to create the plateau. If you were to continue honing with the ne
abrasive you would eliminate the plateau effect and create a simple non-plateau nish equal in roughness
to the nish abrasive.
Plateau Caution
In the past in order to obtain a good plateau nish and eliminate the torn and fragment metal left behind
from the diamond abrasive you would use a three step process where you would use rough abrasive
for base nish followed by a ne abrasive for the plateau effect then follow that up with plateau brush to
remove torn and fragmented material from surface. When you use the plateau brushes you should never
use more than 6 strokes. More honing time with plateau brushes will cause glazed cylinder walls!