Life or Death: The Art of Perfect CNC Machining

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:08]Spinal surgeons rely on these tools to help save lives. What you're about to see us machine today is just one component of a surgical retraction tool.

[00:00:17]These are the drop blades. These tools are used to access a patient's spine during spinal surgery. And these have been used across the globe to help change millions of patients lives. Back when I worked in medical manufacturing, I had the opportunity to make drop blades just like these. These particular parts are a modified version of that original prototype. Systems like this are designed to help surgeons maintain stable, controlled access during surgery. Keeping that in mind, any small mistake while machining this part could result in a minor surgical accident to complete surgical failure. So, to reliably machine parts at this level of precision, I'll be using YCM's CX4.

[00:00:57]We've already prepped our stock with a dovetail. All we have to do is load in our part and get rolling. So, we'll be machining this part dry for camera purposes, but if you want the best surface finish, you should definitely use coolant. We're using Blazers Synergy 735, and that gives us an absolutely perfect surface finish. Okay, we got our stock loaded and we're ready to run our machine. Let's do it.

[00:01:30]This is the fastest I've ever gone on a machine. This machine goes up to 787.

[00:01:35]We're going 785.

[00:01:37]We're going almost as fast as this machine will let us go.

[00:01:42]And the spindle load's handling pretty well. I honestly thought it'd be a little bit higher, but this YCM is doing real well.

[00:01:59]It's the only part I get worried about is because those chips can bind up right when you're doing small cuts inside of a pocket like that. But yeah, we're just going on the big cuts, maxing out just over 100% up to about 115. Yeah, I'm super impressed with this machine. That fact that it could handle all those cuts, max RPM, and just going a little bit over 100% on our spindle load.

[00:02:23]That's excellent.

[00:02:35]And that's how you rough a part.

[00:02:38]One thing that's nice about machining these parts is that we're making them out of just one piece of aluminum. This saves us a lot of time and money because otherwise we'd have to create two separate programs, use two separate pieces of material and do two different setups. This way it's one setup, one program and two parts.

[00:03:06]So, what's really cool about this part is that it actually has an angled hole going through it. And that's primarily to light the patient as they're being operated on. But when you're manufacturing that, it can be quite difficult because to get a hole going through at an angle, you have to not only pre-drill, but you have to make sure that your hole is on center so that your drill doesn't walk when it tries to cut through it. The way that we accomplished that was we used a ball-nose endmill and we cut a/4 in deep. And using that same ball-nose endmill, we made a counterbore to fit the drill so that when that drill is completely encapsulated, it will be able to find the center and keep the drill straight as it's going through the material without any issue.

[00:03:56]All right. So, what's really cool about this is we have our tool coming in to cut our teeth. Right now, the spacing between these teeth are actually a nominal size, which is 1/8 of an inch.

[00:04:05]Typically, you want to avoid that at all costs. You don't want any kind of tool going in there at a nominal size, cutting those teeth, burying itself into the corner, and causing chatter. So, you can do one of two things. You can either rework this with your engineer, or you can change tools. In this case, we happen to go with a horn 3 mm tool, which is just slightly smaller than 1/8 of an inch. So, it can go through and do all those tight cuts without interrupting on the walls or the corners, and everything turns out just fine.

[00:04:45]If you want to learn CAD and CAM 100% free, head over to our online academy.

[00:04:50]We have almost 800,000 people already signed up where they're learning everything from programming twoaxis blades all the way up to multiaxis mills. Be sure to check it out if you want to help make a difference in manufacturing. Also, if you like this machine and you want to pick up one just like it, be sure to head over to our website or contact Keith at titansofcnc.com.

[00:05:14]Unlike other parts for different industries, if you're making medical parts, the tolerances can be as tight as two microns. To give a little perspective, that's almost 40 times smaller than a human hair. And those tolerances don't just exist on one part.

[00:05:27]They stack across multiple components.

[00:05:30]And when everything comes together into one compact mechanical system like this, even the smallest variation can affect how the system behaves, how it moves, how it aligns, and ultimately how the system performs. And in medical manufacturing, that level of precision matters. It changes people's lives.

[00:05:59]So, normally after we're done machining these parts, they'll go out for color anodize. One set will be colored differently from another set based on their size. After the part comes back from outside processing, it'll be assembled into a kit where it'll live in a hospital and help to save lives. If you like the video and you want to see more videos like this, be sure to subscribe to keep up to date with all of our future content. Thanks for watching and have a good one.