Any Doubts? Milling Burs….

We are the UK exclusive suppliers of CamZero burs, suitable for all mills. I went to visit the factory in Germany in which they are produced.

We know the performance of these tools is excellent as we use them in our milling centre, but to understand why, I made a trip to the factory in Germany.

Milling burs: quality vs price

However, as dental technicians we are not savvy when it comes to engineering, so how do we judge if the milling burs we are using are genuine quality or overpriced, or both?

Of course, the rod you start with, made of HSS or tungsten can itself vary in quality enormously, and then, of course, there are many different coatings. And any given diamond coating can itself vary in thickness, grain size and more.

Learning about bur manufacture

My trip was to learn more about the process to make a milling tool, the materials used, German manufacturing and quality control.

We started with a visit to a huge underground store of tungsten, all in rod form, religiously catalogued and ready for grinding.

Next I was taken to the main machine shop…the most striking part about this was that there were possibly 60 to 70 machines of various types working away but only one member of staff to be seen!

The whole operation is almost entirely automatic and works 24-7, 365 days a year. The temperature is held constant to maintain absolute accuracy. Indeed, even the oil coolant for all the machines is pumped into a central ‘oil room’ where it is cleaned and sent back…but at the exact same temperature! I was certainly getting the impression that every possible detail was attended to in order to maintain the holy grail: accuracy.

Then I was shown a typical grinding machine. This one cost 1 million euros. I took a picture…the inside looked like a machine shop on its own, so many things going on simultaneously

By now it was impossible not to be impressed. In the store of finished tools there were around two million items…the amazing thing being that every single tool produced is mega accurately checked (yes, on another expensive machine!)  It checks at least 10 parameters and a ‘pass’ is to an accuracy of 1 micron…that’s 0.001  A robot picks up the tool at lightening speed and the measurements are taken.

On to another machine. This time it was making the milling tools for drilling holes in PCB’s for placing computer chips. These tools are just 0.055 mm in diameter and have to be totally ‘in spec’

Here is yet another grinding machine. This is the Rolls Royce of precision  CNC machines for cutting tools. A Rollomatic from Switzerland. Another million euros…

As I returned to the UK, it was with a sense of ‘mission accomplished’. I had seen German engineering and process control, world leading Swiss CNC machines and quality control applied to every tool produced. I now knew there were no ‘magical’ tools out there that were superior in any way.

If you want to try CamZero diamond milling tools for your machine, please contact us on 0117 977 3593 ex3