Successful development of innovative and dynamic parts in today’s miniature dental and medical components industry presents a formidable and equally dynamic challenge to cutting tool manufacturers.
The fast-growing field is driven by enterprising orthopedic surgeons and dental professionals together with medical screw and implant companies, who work in close cooperation with computer aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM) software developers and dedicated machine and tool manufacturers to transform their inventions into parts that are revolutionizing medical and dental procedures. Each new component demands correspondingly advanced tools and geometries to create the new and complex shapes, and to ensure extreme precision and consistently excellent surfaces. The materials used for producing medical screws and implants are titanium superalloys, although stainless steel hard materials are used when a special ratio of depth of cut to chip thickness is required. These materials are gummy and cause built-up edge (BUE), which tends to wear down edge sharpness, while the high temperatures generated during chip breaking shorten tool life and damage surface quality.
ISCAR, a leading manufacturer of cutting tools for metalworking, invests time and resources to develop optimal machining solutions for the medical sector, applying unique geometries, tools, and grades. Utilizing CAD/CAM systems to create custom tool assemblies according to the ISO 13399 standard, ISCAR develops cutting tools for machining miniature medical parts - specifically dental screws and four components for hip joint replacement implants: femoral head, acetabular shell, femoral stem, and bone plate.