Be it from popcorn kernels, celery sticks, or jerky strips, everybody knows the feeling of having a small bit of food stuck in their teeth. With just a toothpick or a string of floss, that pesky sensation can be relieved in an instant. While those minor inconveniences may be temporary, more dire dental health concerns like cavities, cracked crowns, or damaged roots can call for a much more involved approach to reach relief. These fixes can range from a 30-minute filling to an hours-long surgical procedure. Dental discomfort is frustrating to experience, but what about when that discomfort persists after the fact? When applying a filling or implant that’s meant to be a lifelong solution, even a fraction of a millimeter can make a world of difference at every step of the way. In today’s article, we’ll be going over the role of precision bar materials in all stages of dentistry, from implant manufacturing to the end user experience.
The Role Precision Plays in Manufacturing Dental Devices
When talking about dental device materials, it’s important to note that this includes both tools and implants. While the final applications may differ, the importance of precision remains the same while manufacturing both of these kinds of parts. For tools, precision can spell the difference between a successful first procedure and a corrective appointment, while precision in prostheses and implants is crucial to both the procedure’s effectiveness and the patient’s comfort. So, how does precision ground bar come into play here?
Reduce Defective Parts & Improve Yields
Material quality makes a difference, and the dental device field is one where quality variation is just not an option. Precision ground bar boasts dimensional accuracy to as little as 40 millionths of an inch, surface finish to as fine as 2 Ra, which result in much greater ease of use compared to standard bar stock. By starting with high quality bar stock, manufacturers can reduce rejects and improve their yields per lot.
Minimize Downtime
Better yet, utilizing precision ground bar or blanks as a base can help drastically cut downtime. Because precision material is consistent throughout its length and across individual units, this often eliminates the need for fine-tuning and calibrations during setup. With precision material, you simply set it into the machine and let it run, without worrying about whether the finished part will be within spec.
Achieve Tighter Tolerances
Not only can centerless ground bars improve manufacturing precision—they can also allow manufacturers to achieve greater accuracy to a tight-tolerance target. This enables them to reliably create products of a higher quality, thereby enhancing brand reputation. With more repeat customers and recommendations, precision pays off for manufacturers in countless ways.
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Boosting Procedural Success With Precision Parts
Precision isn’t just beneficial for manufacturers. It also holds advantages for both care providers and patients. For now, let’s focus on the providers.
For dental professionals, especially oral surgeons, the quality of the tools and implants they choose is intrinsically tied to the quality of their work and to their reputation. Ideally, every fix should be seamless. In other words, selecting the right tools is a key factor in the success of every single procedure they perform. A dentist will naturally expect tools and implants that perform consistently between jobs, whether that tool is a water jet, rotary polisher, or drill. The items that they use every day count on reliable construction and consistent dental device material to achieve successful results.
How Precision Improves Patient Comfort
Procedural success is equally important to dental patients who, whether they’re aware of it or not, also rely on quality dental device materials. The same way that dentists expect seamless performance from their tools, patients expect results that resolve their discomforts and last for a lifetime. Nobody wants to deal with a filling that wasn’t applied properly, or an implant that doesn’t sit quite right. These patients count on both manufacturers and care providers to choose only the best quality dental device materials, because their experience really does depend on it. That’s the role that precision plays in facilitating patient comfort.
Dental Device Materials at Boston Centerless
Although precision is imperative, it’s also important to recognize the value that different materials bring to different use cases. At Boston Centerless, we provide centerless ground, medical grade materials for a variety of dental device applications.
Stainless Steel
We offer many grades of stainless steel, but for dental device materials Martensitic steels (400 series) are most appropriate. This series of steels is often used in both medical and dental tools alike, and is especially preferred for its corrosion resistance. Stainless steel is also used for some implants.
Titanium
Another choice for implants is pure titanium, often selected for its outstanding biocompatibility. Pure titanium has been observed to avoid rejection from the immune system in many cases, and can even facilitate bone fusion over time. This makes it a secure and comfortable option for dental implants in particular. Due to its price, titanium is not as commonly used for tools like picks, but for implants the benefits often outweigh the costs of using a relatively small quantity.
Additional Medical Alloys
Beyond stainless steel and titanium, we stock a wide library of materials that are geared towards medical and dental applications of all sorts. If steel and titanium don’t satisfy the specific needs of your part or product, we encourage you to browse our full selection of medical alloys to find the right material for the job.
Want to explore dental device material options? Contact Boston Centerless
today to speak with one of our precision material experts.