Dental milling tool

A dental milling tool for milling dental materials in the making of dental prostheses, wherein:

• the dental milling tool is a ball-nose end mill having a diameter of 0.3 mm-8 mm and having precisely two or precisely three helical flutes, each flute being associated with a cutting edge, each cutting edge having chip breakers along the curved edges of the ball;
• and
• the dental milling tool is coated with a hard coating selected from the group consisting of:
• diamond coating, diamond-like-carbon (DLC), nitride based coating such as titanium aluminium nitride (TiAlN), aluminium titanium nitride, (AlTiN), and titanium nitride (TiN), and ceramic coating.

A method of milling dental materials comprising:

• providing a dental milling material;
• milling said dental milling material with a dental milling tool in forming a dental prostheses, the dental milling tool comprising:
• a ball-nose end mill with a diameter of 0.3 mm-8 mm and having precisely two or precisely three helical flutes, each flute being associated with a cutting edge, each cutting edge having chip breakers along the curved edges of the ball;
• and
• the dental milling tool is formed from a hard material selected from the group consisting of:
• carbide based material, ceramic, cermet, superhard materials including polycrystalline diamond (PCD) and cubic boron nitride (CBN), diamond composite, diamond coating, diamond-like-carbon (DLC), nitride based coating such as titanium aluminium nitride (TiAlN), aluminium titanium nitride, (AlTiN), and titanium nitride (TiN), and ceramic coating.