Objective Brittle removal of hard-brittle material in honing will lead to failure of the workpiece surface quality to meet higher application requirements, and cause serious abrasive wear at the same time. This paper aimed to study the relationship between the grinding parameters of single grain and flow stress in the first deformational area of chip in the honing process through theoretical modelling, and get the threshold of parameters in ductile removal. Methods For the 304 stainless steel, through analysis of the abrasive scratch caused by single grain, the function relationships between the flow stress in the first deformational area of chip and the single particle edge radius, the grinding depth and the semi cone angle in the plane case were derived by mathematics. Results The ductile removal for material was found in the complete edge grinding and the composite grinding stage. In complete edge grinding, under the condition of edge radius r=1 μm and grinding depth h=0.07 μm, the flow stress reached its maximum value of σ=227.7 MPa. In composite grinding, under the condition of semi cone angle θ=30° and r＜1.5 μm, the ductile removal threshold was r=0.3~1 μm; when h=0.6 μm, the thresholds of θ and r to achieve the ductile removal for material also existed, which were 45°~75° and about 0.5 μm, respectively. Conclusion The threshold ranges of single abrasive grain edge radius, the grinding depth and semi cone angle for the ductile removal of material were determined in theory, which provides reference for the further study of the ductile removal theory in hard-brittle material. At the same time, the edge radius of grain should be appropriately reduced, and the semi cone angle should be set in the range of 45°~75°, so as to increase the grinding depth, realize the ducticle removal of material, and improve the surface quality and the grinding efficiency of material.