This tiny prototype dental instrument latch was milled from O-1 toolsteel and hardened to RC58-60, then polished. It is 0.025″ thick.
This tiny prototype dental instrument latch was milled from O-1 toolsteel and hardened to RC58-60, then polished. It is 0.025″ thick.
This is the same pin shown in the wire EDM photo gallery.
This little screw is turned from 303 stainless steel and has a very unusual screwdriver slot shaped like an “S”. Matching screwdrivers are also milled from 303 stainless steel by Implant Mechanix.
The part is turned from 17-4 PH stainless steel and the ports and tapered bore are EDM machined in this nozzle. Both the bore and the ports have a complex contour that could only be machined using sinker EDM.
Another part of the nozzle assembly.
The port electrode:The electrode material is Telco copper. the burn time was about an hour per electrode and 6 electrodes were needed to burn all the ports to final finish and geometry
Shown is a prototype of a part used in implant dentistry, just off the milling machine and ready for microscope deburring with a scalpel blade. The plastic is a high performance material called PEEK.
This is a stainless steel tube that forms part of a needle biopsy instrument. The tubing is very thin…the wall is 0.004″ thick. The slots need square ends and must be precisely oriented around the tube. The slots must be bur-free since other parts slide in the tube. Despite its expense, EDM is the obvious processing choice for a part like this.
The slots are 0.015″ wide. There are six of them around the periphery of the tube which is just over 1.0 mm in diameter. The slots were cut using the sinker EDM by vectoring a six pronged electrode around the tube which was oriented standing up in the worktank. The tube is so flimsy that the first attempts resulted in deformation of the tube when it was clamped into the vee block even though the clamping was performed very gingerly.
Here is the electrode. It is made from copper tungsten which is the material of choice for electrodes that are fragile and must stand up to repeated use. This electrode material is quite difficult to machine on conventional equipment, but wire EDM cuts it very well. The two big flats cut into the body are reference surfaces for aligning the electrode when it’s used. This electrode has burned 6 tubes and still has a good bit of life in it.
Shown is a titanium tee that cannot have any crevices in which bacteria can grow. This requires both an external and an internal weld. The external weld is completely straightforward but the internal weld is a challenge, not only to weld, but also to photograph.
A simple freehand laser weld. The material is Ti6Al4V and the weld is perfomed under argon coverage. This is a fusion weld (no filler wire added) and the customer supplied the individual parts. Fusion welding like this requires excellent fit of the joint, typically with a gap no bigger than 0.002″
Here is the internal weld, about a half inch down a 0.250″ diameter hole. You can see from the photo that it’s at an awkward angle, so the hole in the upright leg of the tee was made a bit larger in diameter to provide a ledge for the beam to hit. This weld requires no strength; its only function is to seal the crevice to prevent bacterial ingress.
Shown are a set of 316 stainless steel parts for a probe. The deep precision bores and tight tolerances are challenging but straightforward. The threaded spindle is 3/8″ diameter and the part on the extreme left has angled internal passages that required the operation sequence to be carefully pre-planned. There is a laser welded wire screen visible on the front end of the second part from the left. The longest part is approximately 6″ long.
Here I am in formal attire. My name is Marcus Carius and I am the owner, operator, chief cook and bottle washer for Implant Mechanix Inc. I was trained as a tool and die maker starting in 1976 building injection molds for the plastics industry. In 1980 I returned to university (UBC) and completed a degree in Honours Physiology and a degee in Dentistry with some dabbling in Fine Arts and Medicine to round it all out. I practiced dentistry until 1998 when I retired to pursue my first love of making things for a living, and I’ve never looked back. Implant Mechanix was originally set up to support my clinical dental practice which was deeply involved with the management of difficult implant cases, hence the company name. The company scope has broadened greatly since then, and now offers design, development, and fabrication services to a wide range of customers.
Here is another shot of me engaged in serious product testing. Actually the testing IS serious; my customer and I needed to determine the best geometry to keep a plastic noseclip in place on smaller noses, and this was a good, if undignified way to get the information we needed.
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