Simon Whitehouse shares the lessons he has learned on his digital journey, and why he is pleased he made the switch from analogue.
About 10 years ago at a dental show, I was looking at new technology called printing models. ‘Hmmm,’ I thought, ‘This will never catch on.’
The machines were incredibly expensive, and the software even more so. As an orthodontic laboratory, I could only see it working for models. I came away thinking I’ll stick to Kaffir D, Crystacal plaster, a cheap rubber bowl and a spatula.
Roll on to lockdown, which was a bad time all round. All work from surgeries ceased, but luckily for us we have a sister business, Fix-Ur-Dent, which took repairs from the general public.
With staff being furloughed, this just about kept us afloat, but worse was to come…
As we emerged from lockdown, many clients were switching to digital – a major problem! I enquired with suppliers about costings to see if we could afford to follow the ‘dark arts’. I was pleasantly surprised to find that we could get a printer, material and all the trimmings for less than the cost of a holiday in the sun. So, we took the plunge and purchased.
Getting to grips
Having purchased the equipment, we had nowhere to set it up, so it remained in the store cupboard in its box for some 10 months. Then a former client said he would start sending us work if we could take digital scans. So began the rejig of the available space.
I assumed that doing more digital work would mean fewer models, so we moved our polisher from the polishing room and into the plaster room. (When I say polishing room, it was an old shower room and toilet.)
Work began in earnest, and we set about knocking a wall down and boarding the room out with insulation and plywood. Being a dental technician – and not a financially flush one at that – it was all done in-between the retainers, twin blocks and dentures, but as we all know, technicians can turn their hands to anything if needs must.
Having converted the room, I put all the equipment in place, including a new PC with a lovely big screen (eyes get old, don’t they).
I then hit the next problem – it looks nice, but how does it work?
I spent a day at WHW’s place ‘darn souf’ to give me an introduction. From this, I managed to work out what it could do and how to switch it on. I had just started that steep curve everyone tells me about. In comes Andrew Wheeler with a rope to help me climb the curve – a couple of sessions with him physically showing me how to work this mystical machine and I was on my way.
Finding solutions
I’m now pretty proficient in working and study models, and when I have time, I sit down in front of the screen to see if I can find ways to improve my workflows using the 3D systems.
Twin blocks are a good example. Plaster models are fine for articulating, but I had to work out the best way to articulate digital models. I first tried hollowing the models, but this just resulted in the plaster expansion cracking the models. Then I tried a solid model and encased the bottom of the base in plaster – this worked but I started to want a digital solution.
I noticed there were a couple of articulators built into Blender, so I tried using a central articulator to modify the lower scan so the articulator had something to attach to. While this sort of worked, I noticed there was quite a bit of lateral movement, which I didn’t want. I looked at the design of the articulator and realised that using two and placing them in the distal ends of the arches would stop the lateral movement.
The only problem now was that placing them individually was time consuming. So, I put a connecting bar between the two, which saved the articulator as one STL. This meant it could be brought into Blender and scaled to fit any size model. This has worked pretty well!
Go for it
I’m not saying my advice is the answer for all cases, it’s just what I, as a novice, have been able to do.
If anyone is thinking about digital, go for it! I still think some traditional methods are better, but I’m finding that digital can be pretty effective and interesting.
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