Sorry for the delay. I had a great time talking with Lee! And I talked to him about this site. He seemed interested.
He was not selling or pushing E4D. It ended up being my questioning where he would talk about E4D/D4D.
I simply had a blast. We talked about our kids (he has 3),how we got started doing this "lab-thang" and other personal events that I will not disclose in a forum. He is a great guy.
I started using the Phonares teeth by Ivoclar. I got insight into how he sculpted them and the timing (the all too often, labtech under the gun hours that we often fall into to "git-er-done"). He also sculpted the BlueLine Teeth. I was candid about molds that I disliked (P-moulds "lifted" from Dentsply). He told me he wanted to call the new line Kobalt (an extension of the 'blue' name) instead of Phonares, but it didn't happen.
He showed me some different ways of looking at mandibular incisors and the distal flare of the mandibular laterals. We discussed a lot of areas where I could improve and I was encouraged.
We then talked about scanning and CAD/CAM and digital dentistry. He told me about the inefficiencies of doing everything by hand. It is artistic and creative but takes so much time. 2 techs with one front office staff (tracking incoming/outgoing and billing) could easily do 20+ crowns per day and generate some serious cash.
In reality, the milling machines are expensive and milling centers will be on the rise. The giant 4 labs (ie. Glidewell) currently only have 8% of the entire lab market. The small lab is not going away, but working more together to increase productivity and share costs may be a bright area in our futures.
Lee told me what he liked about the D4D system is that it will allow you to design multiple crowns AT THE SAME TIME, whereas the Cerec forces you to do one, lock it down and move to the next.
Bad preps are bad preps. Just as with Ceramo-metal crowns, ideal preps increase opportunities for idea crowns and the CAD/CAM is no different. The D4D can handle no-prep veneers, and feather margins, but deviations from idea can increase need for compromise.
Tissue management is critical. If a doc cannot pack cord, use expanding material (ie Expasil sp?) or laser the tissue, then they should not get into this form of dentistry.
Full mouth scans off models are already here. The intraoral scanning of the entire mouth takes time but can be done. The current tweaking is combining i-CAT scans with intraoral scans to create the virtual patient for implant diagnosis, planning, placement and fabrication. This can already be done, it just needs to be refined and "simplified" if possible.
I was wrong about the machine milling titanium, or at least being set up to do this. Lee told me that titanium is a challenge to mill at the precision and shapes required for implant parts and would require a 5-axis machine which would greatly increase costs.
I apologize if I promoted any mis-information. I could go on and on, but I need to go "pay some bills."
It was good to see Lee again, and a joy to spend time with him personally, one-on-one. He was gracious with every one of my questions (even on the trip to the airport). He invited me down to Dallas to take a look at things he has going on. I plan to look for some time in the near future.
I look forward to seeking every oportunity to raise my personal bar. Of course, (our own) Al does this for me, as well. I'd be happy to wash a bunch of dishes to hang out with Al.
