Method of manufacturing femoral knee implant

A method of manufacturing a distal femoral knee prosthesis comprising the steps of:

• a) forming a rough prosthesis workpiece member that has the approximate size and shape of a final, polished distal femoral prosthesis;
• b) attaching the prosthesis member to a fixator;
• c) movably supporting the fixator adjacent a rotary grinder wheel;
• d) controlling relative motion between the rotary grinder and the prosthesis member workpiece with a computer;
• e) shaping a curved articular surface of the prosthesis member by engaging the prosthesis member with the rotary grinder wheel;
• f) preliminary polishing the articular surface;
• g) secondarily polishing the articular surface until it has a highly polished mirror finish;
• and
• h) wherein in step "e" the grinding wheel sculpts the articular surface by forming a plurality of grooves placed adjacent one another.

A method of manufacturing a distal femoral knee prosthesis comprising the steps of:

• a) forming a rough prosthesis workpiece member that has the approximate size and shape of a final, polished distal femoral prosthesis;
• b) attaching the prosthesis member to a fixator;
• c) movably supporting the fixator adjacent a rotary grinder wheel;
• d) controlling relative motion between the rotary grinder and the prosthesis member workpiece with a computer;
• e) shaping a curved articular surface of the prosthesis member by engaging the prosthesis member with the rotary grinder wheel that forms a plurality of grooved portions;
• f) preliminary polishing the articular surface to remove the grooved potions;
• g) secondarily polishing the articular surface until it has a highly polished mirror finish;
• and
• h) wherein in step "a" the forming step includes forming a generally "J" shaped outer surface on the prosthesis member.

A method of manufacturing a distal femoral knee prosthesis comprising the steps of:

• a) forming a rough prosthesis workpiece member that has the approximate size and shape of a final, polished distal femoral prosthesis;
• b) attaching the prosthesis member to a fixator;
• c) movably supporting the fixator adjacent a rotary grinder wheel;
• d) controlling relative motion between the rotary grinder and the prosthesis member workpiece with a computer;
• e) shaping a curved articular surface of the prosthesis member by engaging the prosthesis member with the rotary grinder wheel that forms a plurality of grooved portions;
• f) preliminary polishing the articular surface to remove the grooved portions;
• g) secondarily polishing the articular surface until it has a highly polished mirror finish
• h) wherein in step "a" the forming step includes forming a generally "J" shaped outer surface on the prosthesis member;
• and
• i) forming of a plurality of flat inner surfaces opposite the outer surface.

A method of manufacturing a joint prosthesis comprising the steps of:

• a) forming a rough joint prosthesis workpiece member that has the approximate size and shape of a desired final, polished joint prosthesis;
• b) attaching the joint prosthesis member to a fixator;
• c) supporting the fixator adjacent a rotary grinder;
• d) controlling relative motion between the rotary grinder and the prosthesis member with a computer;
• e) shaping an articular surface of the prosthesis member by engaging the prosthesis member with the rotary grinder;
• f) preliminarily polishing the articular surface to remove the grooves;
• and
• g) secondarily polishing the articular surface until it has a highly polished mirror finish.

A method of manufacturing a distal femoral knee prosthesis comprising the steps of:

• a) forming a casting that approximates the size and shape of a desired femoral knee prosthesis, the casting including a curved articular surface portion to be finished;
• b) grinding the articular surface with a rotary grinding member that cuts multiple elongated grooves in the articular surface of the casting along a predetermined path;
• c) moving the casting to present different areas of the articular surface to the grinding surface during the grinding of the articular surface of step "b";
• and
• d) moving the blank and grinding member relative to one another during a cutting of the articular surface;
• e) preliminarily polishing the articular surface to remove the grooves;
• and
• f) secondarily polishing the articular surface until it has a highly polished mirror finish.