Dr. Peter Moon (material science)
and Dr Escherman of MCV in VA came up with the idea. My dad (now 70) was teaching C&B there when it happened. Unless you have another story, that's pretty much it. We used a special series of screen filters to get the salt to a certian size. That screen assembly is now at Goodwin Dental Lab in Richmond collecting dust. The kit was salt, red grease, slow and fast cyano-acrylate accelorator, and thick super glue. The kit looked home-made.
As you mentioned, the wings were a little thick. With modern cement and now Zirconia and implants.....this is pretty much obsolete.