My 5 Powder Production Buildup

Clear Precision Dental

Clear Precision Dental

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This is what I was thinking (Le Cron). I've gotten these from Pearson Lab Supply. They have their brand for $3.95, USA for $7.50, Waldron $11.95 or ARS for $4.50.

You can round the bladed end (if desired),it has the serrations (even if they are not FULL length),and a discoid on one end (that's what appears to be on the end of yours).

Whaddayathink?
Le Cron carver.jpg
 
Al.

Al.

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Thats my main waxing instrument, besides my electric waxer a BP blade. I always called it a roach carver. I have two one I sharpened the tip the other is slightly blunted. I mainly use them for carving anatomy into wax for full crowns.
For porc it needs to be thin and a little flexable. I know a guy that took a razorblade and cut it and shaped it and glued it into a stick. But that is a little two thin and flexable for me. A razor is .1 mm thick I like .3
 
Al.

Al.

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Thanks Al!

Im having trouble finding anything exactly like your spatula. I found something similar to it in the Zahn 2007-2008 Catalog on page 285 (Left hand side)

And I found something similar on Ebay that I guess I could
just lathe to shape/size:

Spatula Norustain Wax Tool #31 - eBay (item 260362145159 end time Mar-15-09 23:57:43 PDT)

That must be the old Zahn catalog. My new one came in yesterday and I think my wife threw my old one away.
The one I see is the Kerr porc. instruments.
Ill probably order that set ,there are 3 different shaped blades and 2 different thickness. and the tips are replaceable on the handles.
Ill probably order 2 of the long one and cut a little off the tip and round the edges, of one because I like a broader tip.
Its $79 for 4 handles and 4 tips.
They say one tip is a gingival tip and one is an incisal tip one is a probe and one a knife edge.
I like to keep it as simple as possible. Too many instruments gets confusing and non productive. If I had to use that many instruments I would spend too much time looking for the one I needed.
When I really get cranking sometimes I go a little to fast and throw my tools 12 to 18' in front of me. I usually know exactly where they land but if I had to look through 3 or 4 different tools it would really slow me down.
It dosnt take much. A minute here and there turns into 4 or 5 crowns a week or which = $750 to 1000.
 
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AcademyDL

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That must be the old Zahn catalog. My new one came in yesterday and I think my wife threw my old one away.
The one I see is the Kerr porc. instruments.
Ill probably order that set ,there are 3 different shaped blades and 2 different thickness. and the tips are replaceable on the handles.
Ill probably order 2 of the long one and cut a little off the tip and round the edges, of one because I like a broader tip.
Its $79 for 4 handles and 4 tips.
They say one tip is a gingival tip and one is an incisal tip one is a probe and one a knife edge.
I like to keep it as simple as possible. Too many instruments gets confusing and non productive. If I had to use that many instruments I would spend too much time looking for the one I needed.
When I really get cranking sometimes I go a little to fast and throw my tools 12 to 18' in front of me. I usually know exactly where they land but if I had to look through 3 or 4 different tools it would really slow me down.
It dosnt take much. A minute here and there turns into 4 or 5 crowns a week or which = $750 to 1000.


Yeah its the old Zahn Catalog. Lucky, I don't have the new one yet. Oh well
I prefer last years prices. I looked online and Geesh about 10% increase year over year with Zahn the last few years. :(

I picked up the Tropicana and some brushes. Ill have to let you know what I think. This is going to be fun.

I have the 4 piece tool set you mentioned above but I will warn you the tools are very thin and flimsy and unless you like that they can require a little getting used to.

- Justin
 
dudek

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great lecture.

Al.

Thank you for great presentation. Very good quality pictures. In my crowns I always have litle space on occ. or no space at all. Can you tell how do you opaque copings>

Best from dudek:)
 
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Al.

Al.

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Al.

Thank you for great presentation. Very good quality pictures. In my crowns I always have litle space on occ. or no space at all. Can you tell how do you opaque copings>

Best from dudek:)
In those cases I just give them ugly flat and opaque crowns:( Fortunatly all the Drs I work for now give me plenty of room but the worst are new graduates from dental school.
Are you finishing your own copings or do you work behind a metal finisher. If your working behind a metal finisher you need to measure your copings. The will get lazy on you if you dont stay on top of them.
 
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Affinity

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"I know there are alot of 1 and 2 man operations struggling to produce and there are alot of larger guys wanting to scale down so mabey my story can help.
I documented one weeks of production during the Christmas rush where I did 73 units. Mabey Ill post a thread on it in a couple of weeks."

I know that im fairly new to this forum, but have been on others for some time now. When I read this, you will have to pardon my disbelief.. A post of a 1 or 2 man operation doing $28k a month or 40-80 units a week. Dont get me wrong, your work is beautiful, and worth far more than $100 a unit, but how on earth do you manage to get out 40-80 units a week at that quality? I understand being quick and efficient, but Ive never heard of one person putting out that much work by themselves. Do you not have any help with waxing/metal? I mean, Im young and can hustle, and I feel i work fairly efficiently, but Ive killed myself trying to get out over 100 units a month. Granted, I am doing all model work, billing, shipping, delivering.. everything start to finish.. Theres no way you can complete that much work in an 8-10 hour day.. help me out here...
Ive worked at production labs too, and the work is crap.. I just dont see a way for one person to do high quality work with having to trim 10 dies, prep 10 dies, wax 10, invest, cast, finish 10 units, opaque 10, build, cut, glaze, qc.. all in one day.. everyday..
All the respect in the world, really! Maybe im just missing something here..:confused:
 
Al.

Al.

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"I know there are alot of 1 and 2 man operations struggling to produce and there are alot of larger guys wanting to scale down so mabey my story can help.
I documented one weeks of production during the Christmas rush where I did 73 units. Mabey Ill post a thread on it in a couple of weeks."

I know that im fairly new to this forum, but have been on others for some time now. When I read this, you will have to pardon my disbelief.. A post of a 1 or 2 man operation doing $28k a month or 40-80 units a week. Dont get me wrong, your work is beautiful, and worth far more than $100 a unit, but how on earth do you manage to get out 40-80 units a week at that quality? I understand being quick and efficient, but Ive never heard of one person putting out that much work by themselves. Do you not have any help with waxing/metal? I mean, Im young and can hustle, and I feel i work fairly efficiently, but Ive killed myself trying to get out over 100 units a month. Granted, I am doing all model work, billing, shipping, delivering.. everything start to finish.. Theres no way you can complete that much work in an 8-10 hour day.. help me out here...
Ive worked at production labs too, and the work is crap.. I just dont see a way for one person to do high quality work with having to trim 10 dies, prep 10 dies, wax 10, invest, cast, finish 10 units, opaque 10, build, cut, glaze, qc.. all in one day.. everyday..
All the respect in the world, really! Maybe im just missing something here..:confused:

In my opinion it is impossible for a 2 person operation to produce if you are working buy the day, or doing 10 to 15 units a day as you described above.
I dont think it can be done either.

Your buy your self? Doing model work, pu and delivery and billing? Forget about production you cant do it unless you get somebody to do your model and die and pu's. Get one person to help and 25 units a week is part time work.

You have to work buy the week. You have to produce X number of units per week not X units per day. Prepare all your dies one day and wax. Cast eveything. Fit everyting in a group all the way to delivering everything for the week on Mon. AM.

I documented that week with a couple dozen pics from die prep to cases packed up ready for delivery and mail.

Ill be glad to post them but not till the weekend it takes along time to upload that many pics with explainations.

In my opinion speed is very important but organization and your system in a small lab is more important to production.

As an update to this thread I have picked up some higher end Drs that I am charging between $220 and 250 a unit depending on what they want, and Ive drop 2 production Drs.

But I am not convienced there is any more profit in doing this kind of work because these guys are so much more demanding and require so much more communication.
When you start getting into the $250+ price range, your work needs to look good under the macro lens, that means all margins must be perfect to 10X mag and every brush stroke of stain must be blended etc etc. A major PIA because these guys expect presentation quality work even for 2nd molars.
 
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Al.

Al.

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This is 48 pfm frames cut fit and ready to be weighed.
ai46.photobucket.com_albums_f116_CDLAB_p.jpg

This is 65 units after the 1st bake ready to have the contacts ground in.
ai46.photobucket.com_albums_f116_CDLAB_p1.jpg

68 units of pfms and emax - 5 FGCs not in the pic ready to be packed up Sunday after the week of hell for me.

ai46.photobucket.com_albums_f116_CDLAB_p2.jpg
ai46.photobucket.com_albums_f116_CDLAB_p.jpg ai46.photobucket.com_albums_f116_CDLAB_p1.jpg ai46.photobucket.com_albums_f116_CDLAB_p2.jpg
 
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Affinity

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Thanks for the reply,

That definitely makes more sense, and I do try to run everything in a batch. So do you take everything you got in for the week, have all the model work done and start on it first thing monday? Then have everything delivered the following monday? So what kind of hours do you put in? do you work saturday and sunday too? It makes more sense the way you explain it. I am training my wife to do the model work now, and deliveries, so I know that will help out alot. I use the Cbite system now, but I have been wanting to try the monotrac also.
Where in FL did you live al? I am in Clearwater now, preparing to move out west.. ive had it with this shark tank also...
 
L

labdude

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This has nothing to do with porcelain.
It has everything to do with what Al has said.
This method can be applied to any area of the field, in this case orthodontics. All finished at this point, but, you get the idea.
zebraladybugfinished.jpg

Edit:pics are all backwards, give me a break, long weekend.
Large pic is all finished, 2nd pic is in the pressure pot being cured, last pic is right at the prep stage to begin work.
pot full.jpg bio 025.jpg
 
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BMS

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Hey Al, it looks like the pics have all been removed is there somewhere else I can view them or could you email them to me? Thanks.
 
Al.

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Hey Al, it looks like the pics have all been removed is there somewhere else I can view them or could you email them to me? Thanks.

I am sending them to Travis so he can post them to make them permanent.
There are 29 pics total so it may take a while.
 
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careywhiteman

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Have you tried " ceramist" brushes by Renfert. These brushes have synthetic bristles. They point well with a tap, and flatten out nicely. Endo files work well for adding anatomy.
 
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clearH2O

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I need your pictures

Hi Al, I did not have a chance to see these pictures. Would you send them to my email:
<[email protected]>
Thanks
clearH2O
 
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dentallabcoach

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Where are the pics?

I looked for the pics of your buildups but they were not there!!!:confused:
 
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dentallabcoach

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6 crowns a day

I'm looking at the build ups Al has done. Nice work! I used to live in Memphis and had a lab doing 6 porc crowns a day PFM's.
This is how I ran my day.

7:00 am Metal finished todays 6 frames (cast yesterday) and degassed

8:00 opaqued 6 frames and begain die trimming

9:00 waxed and invested 6 for tomorrows work day

10:00 Build 6 porc crowns 1.5 hours and burnout casting ring

11:30 cast ring before 12:00

12:00 lunch

1:00 finish 6 porc. crowns, time 1 hr., crowns were built to close conture

2:00 glaze and package

Most of my models were poured by my daughter on a part time basis.
I could finish up models at this time.
The national average for daily production is 4 crowns a day. I felt good about my daily production. I don't think I could do as many as Al, Like to see how though.

Even to do this production I had to be very focused and not disturbed with constant phone calls etc.

What do you think? Did I leave out anything?:)
 
A

AL1

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Hey Al how can I view your pictures?
 

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