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Comment by bluefirebrand | Hacker News Reader

What would the difference be in your mind?

As long as the blade is suitable for cutting bone and it's all sterilized, what would make it medical grade over carpenter grade?

My Dad was the manager of a tool store for decades. He has had a lot of knee problems and he has a funny story about his knee surgeon coming into the store looking for a drill bit to drill out a stripped screw. He jokingly asked if the stripped screw was in someone's knee, and sure enough it was.

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My woodworking equipment has a certain amount of jitter and give. It seems to have precision to about 1-1.5mm. I imagine medical grade machine cutting would have higher precision?

Probably, but when you're watching these surgeries as a layman for the first time it's surprising how much fumbling around they seem to do. I have a few pieces of metal inside me so took more of an interest at some point, and even those surgeons admit their job is mostly carpentry on hard mode.

My grandfather was an orthopod and an amateur carpenter. The skills really do transfer.

Next time you go under ask your surgeon to take pictures and videos. Very interesting to see inside your body!

I even kept the metal rods they had in my leg in between surgeries that would otherwise be thrown out!

A friend of mine got a hip replacement, and asked for the old hip.

They refused to give it to him. They said it was "medical waste," and they weren't allowed to deal with it, except in whatever federal manner was required.

It would need to be survive an autoclave, for one thing. It would need to be possible to actually clean it, not shed bits of paint and plastic into the patient's skull, material compatibility with antiseptics, etc.

If I thought about it for a few minutes, I'm sure I could create a long list of requirements for a suitable saw.

> what would make it medical grade over carpenter grade?

In my experience, about $50000.

As long as it survives an autoclave and doesn't leave behind any debris in the site, it seems fine.

You will have a very hard time sterilizing a carpenter grade saw.

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