Yes, with an adequate bur like a cutting wheel and if its in vivo temperature control (spraying NaCl), low RPM. Cant say exactly how much torque but a dental lab micro motor or a hand piece from the mobile dental office will work.
you did not tell us How are you working on animal skulls? ie live animals or dry skull or are you working on human dry skulls .there are many answers for each of these items .also what instruments you have like handpiece ,piezo electric or striker saw
assuming you are working on rats for an experiment then the answer is yes i presume you are talking about dental hand piece or are you talking about one of those motors lab motors we use for the dentures.
certainly we use dental hand piece both contra angle and straight hand piece .The reason is we can sterilize them both .This is totally different than the denture lab motor which is difficult to sterilize ,and of course we use a lot of saline and very good satirizing technique to avoid infection .
We follow here the same techniques used by our colleagues in neuro surgery where we first make a whole with a rose head bur then we connect the dots using either a fissure bur or a cutting stainless steel wheel. We some time even use the famous Penfield periosteal elevator under the area we cut to prevent any damages to the brain tissue this is the same instruments our colleagues in neuro surgery use.. Once we finish the procedure we cover the calvaria by the same piece of bone using titanium plates or stainless steel wire to hold the segments back to the skull
hope that helps
best wishes
Dr.K.A.Galil.Professor of Dentistry
Visit my web page Drgalil.ca DDS.,D.Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery,PH.D,FAGD.,FADI.,Cert.Periodontist(Royal College of Dental Surgeons ) ,Developer of The patented first App in Oral Histology in the world for i Pad,i Phone ,i Pod Touch visit the web site https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dgohe+/id1015383607?mt=8 and down load a free demo ,look at the bottom of the page . see Dr.Galil listed as #17 on 51 first researchers in the History of Western University since 1878
Dear Dr. K.A.Galil, yes i am asking regarding dental (straight) handpiece lab micromotor subjected to human dry skull since the speed and torque required are 30,000 to 50,000 rpm and 2.5 N-cm respectively.
now we know what you are doing ,its very easy to use a straight hand piece .Since you are using a dry skull you can use many thing e.g a hand piece ,contra angle and denture hand pieces. we have been using all three items mentioned but we found that it takes a long time to do these cutting using a hand piece and we prefer the so called striker saw which is used by orthopedic surgeons and anatomists also ,it makes clean cuts- not ragged- (which some times you can get with a bur)
I have enclosed for you one of my students Master degree thesis work and here he uses dental burs other student used the striker saw both obtained good results and successfully defended their thesis
Cert.Periodontist(Royal College of Dental Surgeons ) ,
Developer of The patented first App in Oral Histology in the world for i Pad,i Phone ,i Pod Touch
visit the web site https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dgohe+/id1015383607?mt=8 and down load a free demo ,look at the bottom of the page .
see Dr.Galil listed as #17 on 51 first researchers in the History of Western University since 1878http://www.uwo.ca/research/51_firsts/https://www.uwo.ca/research/_img/about/Publications/51%20Firsts%20English.pdfhttp://www.uwo.ca/research/_img/about/Publications/51%20Firsts%20Chinese.pdf