Dental Lab Products-2012-07-01

Dentists today rely increasingly on their partners in the dental laboratory for information about how to predictably place today’s restorations. Laboratories therefore need a thorough understanding of not only the restorative material used in the fabrication of the dental restoration, but also the cementation options and protocols to provide dentists with specific details about the options available.

Model scanners, CAD software and milling equipment were once only found in the largest laboratories and milling centers. However, today they can be found in even one- to two-person laboratories. There is little doubt that technology is allowing laboratories to become more efficient, more productive and have more control and consistency in their work.

01. Can you tell us about the recently announced Vision 2020 plan?

The newest micro-pulse-arc welding system available, the compact Orion 100c was designed to meet the needs of the dental lab market.

Lab technicians worldwide want high-performance precision instruments, but they also want simplification-not an abundance of different widgets, each for a different application, cluttering the lab bench.

Dental cases have been modeled for decades mainly using various dental waxes or PMMA powder-liquid resins, but while offering decent results, this is truly a case where, “The best is the enemy of the good.”

Designed to enable dental labs to manufacture fixed and removable metal frameworks, the PXS dental system laser sintering  machine gets the job done cost effectively and efficiently. Using laser sintering technology to create non-precious copings and frameworks from metal powder, the system produces high quality finished products with a very high degree of accuracy while significantly reducing build time.

The lab After working in larger, high-production labs for several years James Davidge and his wife opened James Dean Prosthetic Arts in California about a year ago. The two-person removables lab focuses on quality and using only the best materials available. They have about 40 clients and are focused on finding out of the box ways to provide high quality prosthetics.

The lab Located in Lakeland, Fla., Al Fillastre and his team at Ceram-O-Arts started providing laboratory work for selected high quality dentists in 1981. Al learned the craft from his father, Dr. Alvin Fillastre, a dentist, and his mother Helga, a gifted lab technician. With an emphasis on high quality, attention to detail is evident in everything they do to deliver the best restorative dentistry possible.

A number of noteworthy new products for dental lab technicians have recently been posted on www.dlpmagazine.com. Among them are the cover products for the July 2012 issue of Dental Lab Products magazine that’s in the mail to subscribers. The cover products have been chosen because of their innovation or perceived impact on productivity and bench artistry. These products are:

Any time removable prosthetic technicians congregate, the conversation eventually turns to dilemmas faced in the lab. There’s no shortage of common problem situations for removable technicians to discuss, but many times questions arise about tooth de-bonding or delamination between the denture tooth and acrylic base.

Over the years, I have seen many restorations being modified and compromised due to poor planning from the start. Developing a plan, turning it into a protocol and then following every step precisely, will ensure a predictable and successful restoration. For aesthetic anterior restorations it is most important to start with a diagnostic wax up. This is a solid foundation for any case. All the critical points such as: length, proportions and anatomical details will be determined.

A 55-year-old gentleman sought a smile make-over and a full reconstruction of his dentition. The case was somewhat unique for me in that the clinician was working in Florida, and the case would be completed nearly 1,500 miles away at my lab in Illinois. This, of course, meant there was no way for the patient to meet with me for a personal visit to verify shade, fit, incisal edge positioning, contour or shape in the final restoration.