araucaria
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The foundation of our work isn't so simple a matter to many techs especially the trainees. Even now after 30 years of being a prosthetics specialist I'm always trying to improve things around the lab, for the benefit of myself and the clinicians. The extra 1% that may be acheived some days always seems worth the effort and I bet we all wish we knew the tricks a lot sooner in our careers.
We make our plates from various materials and try to do what seems best for the job and for the clinical procedures. It may be wax, shellac, coldcuring resin, lightcure, or even thermoformed. For edentulous situations the retention quality is commonly a big issue esp' the upper. To get the retention tested here at try-in stage can be a challenge some days.
TheLC bases while strong, rigid, and uniform in thickness always seem to display signs of distortion. The other materials also seem to deform in some way no matter how small.
The only reliable baseplates for testing the retention qualities IMO is a heatcured permanent baseplate. These add to the workload but give great results. How many times have we received a new impression in a try-in simply because the baseplate wasn't secure due to a minor distortion? Anyone remember ZOE in these? I get reps pushing their LC product onto me saying how wonderful and dimensionally stable they are, yet do these guys have any first-hand experience of the problems that occur. A method that does give good results is using a dual laminate thermformed material but it takes a little practice. Good ol' shellac also works for me in many cases but only used up to the ridge crest and then extended with wax.
The clinical stages do rely on good quality labwork even at the basic levels, and the artwork is of no concern until the foundation of the job is reliable.
The one thing I've yet to try is to have a model scanned and a resin pattern printed - surely it can't get better than that?
The baseplate - so simple, yet forever challenging.
What are your thoughts?
We make our plates from various materials and try to do what seems best for the job and for the clinical procedures. It may be wax, shellac, coldcuring resin, lightcure, or even thermoformed. For edentulous situations the retention quality is commonly a big issue esp' the upper. To get the retention tested here at try-in stage can be a challenge some days.
TheLC bases while strong, rigid, and uniform in thickness always seem to display signs of distortion. The other materials also seem to deform in some way no matter how small.
The only reliable baseplates for testing the retention qualities IMO is a heatcured permanent baseplate. These add to the workload but give great results. How many times have we received a new impression in a try-in simply because the baseplate wasn't secure due to a minor distortion? Anyone remember ZOE in these? I get reps pushing their LC product onto me saying how wonderful and dimensionally stable they are, yet do these guys have any first-hand experience of the problems that occur. A method that does give good results is using a dual laminate thermformed material but it takes a little practice. Good ol' shellac also works for me in many cases but only used up to the ridge crest and then extended with wax.
The clinical stages do rely on good quality labwork even at the basic levels, and the artwork is of no concern until the foundation of the job is reliable.
The one thing I've yet to try is to have a model scanned and a resin pattern printed - surely it can't get better than that?
The baseplate - so simple, yet forever challenging.
What are your thoughts?