Thread Whirling in the Medical Field

After working in this industry for even a short time, you are in tune with all the things around you that have been created on a metalworking machine tool and realize how extensive the list is. Almost everything made in a factory contains at least one part that was manufactured on a machine tool.

My realization of this came especially clear when I began working in the industry (almost 10 years ago) shortly after my father broke his hip after slipping on a sheet of ice in a parking lot. The screws surgically implanted in his hip bone were created on a metalworking machine, but at the time of his accident, I didn’t think anything of it. During the healing process, Dad had some irritation problems with the screws, and therefore had them removed. When he showed these four long bone screws to me, I remember being in awe of how long they were and how strange it seemed that they were once “screwed” into his hip bone.

These bone screws were created by a metalworking process called thread whirling, which is a common medical machining process. To read more about thread whirling, how it works, what applications are best for this type of machining and more, visit Thread Whirling Basics. Thread whirling is also discussed as a medical application in Tooling Up for Micromachining.