Why Hone a cylinder when you can just Grind or burnish the bore to achieve similar surface finish?
The answer is Cross Hatch Angle , a hydraulic cylinder is not much different from an internal combustion engine, then why not adopt the best practices of the internal combustion engine where the perfection bore is not just the criteria but also the Perfect Hatch angle which determines not just the frictional coefficient but also ensures the oil retention on the walls of the cylinder which can be achieved only by a honing , which contributes to extended seal life and longevity of the cylinder bore, so why should hydraulic cylinder walls be any different.
But What about the cost of honing and the time consumed ?
Yes we understand your concern the cost of honing is only more if the output of pre machining activity is irregular or inaccurate, we have a customer called Balaji Engineering in Hyderabad , who manufactures one of the state of the art Borewell Hammer casings , We have seen then bore 1500 long barrels within 8-10 microns accuracy , which drastically reduces the need to hone more material and hence reduces the cost of honing as well. their cycle time per cylinder in honing is a mind boggling 6 mins and achieving accuracies in cylindrically with in 5 microns.
So ideally speaking its not the cost of honing that is actually more , its the cost of correction of the inaccuracies that is more. However that doesn't justify the effort of most people to just eliminate honing and replace it with easier methods like ID grinding as it take away the significant advantages of having a honed surface .