Hi Stuart:
Can you talk more about the profiles you actually need?
There are several kinds of root canal instruments (I used to be a dentist so I'm familiar with them)
K files are made by twisting square, rectangular or triangular cross section tapered wires to make cutting edges that are negative rake but will cut on both the push stroke and the pull stroke.
The cross section is made by surface grinding round wires in a jig.
Hedstrom files have a positive rake cutting action, cut only on the pull stroke and are helical ground on specialty grinders like the Rollomatic from a solid round wire.
Barbed broaches are used for fishing the dental pulp out of the canal before the canal is shaped to admit the inert filler.
They are made like traditional wood rasps are made; by raising slivers of steel from the circumference of a tapered wire without cutting them free of their base.
These do not cut but merely entangle the fibrous part of the dental pulp so it can be fished out of the canal.
Gates-Glidden burs and Peeso reamers are ground from the solid with Rollomatics or similar grinders; both are leaf shaped cutting burs on narrower necks and have zero or negative rake cutting edges and left hand spirals so they cannot augur themselves uncontrollably down a root canal system but must be forced down by the dentist.
The Gates Glidden is narrower and more flexible than the Peeso and they are used for different aspects of root canal preparation.
So having gotten this unsolicited and maybe unwanted education on the various kinds; roughly which kind is it that you want to try to make?
I'm assuming ground like a Hedstrom file???
RollomaticMan is probably going to be by far your best resource for information on how this is actually done; it's a highly specialized field and the operation of these machines is probably most similar to the operation of CNC cutter grinders with the principal difference that these machines are set up for lights out stupendously high volume production so you can imagine what kinds of gadgetry they have around them to feed the wire, inspect the parts, stack them ready to overmold the handles on etc etc etc .
Endo files are cheap...a dollar or two per item, and they are an amazing testament to the ingenuity of those who figured out how to make them.
That in itself tells you how hard it would be to get one of these vendors to break off their regular production to run off a batch of customs for you.
I suspect a company like RollomaticMan's company (Orchid) is going to be a better fit for you than one of the big endo file makers; they'll likely not have fleets of machines pounding the same file out 24/7 as the big players like Kerr would do, but will have a few machines set up to do smaller volumes of specials for smaller companies like dental implant companies or the development arms of some of the big players.
That's the door I'd knock on first.
Second I'd phone Rollomatic and ask for a list of their customers they can recommend to you as vendors.
These machines don't get bought without a lot of tech talk back and forth before the purchase so the Rollomatic guys will know who is your best fit simply by knowing what they were bought to do.
Other notable players in the field would be companies like Norman Noble or Johnson Matthey; both are big medical device companies that advertise in the medical industry magazines; so even if they are uninterested or unable, they'd be worth calling to pick their brains.
BTW endo files are not made of titanium; some are made of stainless steel, probably 15-5 or 17-4 PH, others are made of nickel-titanium (NiTi) which is a superelastic alloy that's a true bitch to fabricate with, but is amazing in its properties, especially its flexibility.
Cheers
Marcus
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