The following post is from a fixed tech with no removable experience :)

[Brett Hansen CDT]

One of my docs has a patient where he would like to use locators attached to a bar. He will cold cure a denture over that bar. I guess the labs in the are that have been doing bars from him have all gone to ****(his words). He was seeing if I could make the bar for him. The distal implants were placed at a more extreme angle. How do you fabricate an offaxis locator? I've done this with fixed bridges before using angle correcting MUAs. Anyone have a video that could point me towards on how these cases are handled? Please be kind if I said anything dumb in this post. I only know locator dentures exist...I've never fabricated one.

 

[Mike2]

why a bar, why not just cold cure the locators into the denture? The bar won't offer strength as the denture will only be as strong s weakest material...the acrylic. Reminds me of targis vetris or skulptor fibercore. Resins that were reinforced with fiberglass, the resin always broke off the fiberglass. My 2 cents

 

[Brett Hansen CDT]

why a bar, why not just cold cure the locators into the denture? The bar won't offer strength as the denture will only be as strong s weakest material...the acrylic. Reminds me of targis vetris or skulptor fibercore. Resins that were reinforced with fiberglass, the resin always broke off the fiberglass. My 2 cents

it sounds like the angle is extreme enough that a stock locator wouldn't work. He was asking about a UCLA style locator?

 

[CoolHandLuke]

does the bar engage a locator or is a locator to be placed on top of the bar? two very different scenarios.

 

[PRO ARTS DL]

I'm thinking you mean a titanium bar with locators? (The bar is fixed/screwed on the patient and the bar has locators on top)

If so then you can just correct angles with MUA's and then make the bar to the MUA's.

I don't have a video to point you out to but things to consider:
Don't make a bar until your cast is verified.
Don't make a bar unless you have an approved try-in. Make a bar that fits a tryin don't make the tryin fit the bar.
If using MUA's, we find it best to first place them and then start the case after with an abutment level impression.

 

[bigj1972]

The only thing gone to **** is competent dentists who want to get involved in erector sets for profit.

 

[bigj1972]

One of my docs has a patient where he would like to use locators attached to a bar. He will cold cure a denture over that bar. I guess the labs in the are that have been doing bars from him have all gone to ****(his words). He was seeing if I could make the bar for him. The distal implants were placed at a more extreme angle. How do you fabricate an offaxis locator? I've done this with fixed bridges before using angle correcting MUAs. Anyone have a video that could point me towards on how these cases are handled? Please be kind if I said anything dumb in this post. I only know locator dentures exist...I've never fabricated one.

They use the bar to compensate for the angled implant. The locator itself won't be angled. The bar will be fixed, and the locator abutments will be welded to the frame. The denture will then have little bucket attachments in it that will snap down on the locator abutment and possibly clips for a bar depending on how that part goes.

Sounds like a bunch of useless crap to me. I wouldn't get involved unless I'd be willing to marry a problem and possibly eat a bunch of money. If you're not fabricating this case, you're going to wind up the middle man and be the one left holding the bag.

He is trying to simplify he is explanation and use you to do it because his removable Labs either can't do it or won't do it.

 

[Rtyrelw]

Check out two companies. Panthera and cagenix. Both of them will fabricate the bar for you and take care of the final prosthesis. Both will walk you through the steps you need to do or the doctor needs to do to get the best results and whether or not you need to change your options. Personally I prefer cagenix but both are fantastic

 

[JKraver]

Pass the Dr to panthera sorry but any Dr that says all the labs have gone to crap isnt worth working for him. You'll be burned eventually.

 

[bigj1972]

but any Dr that says all the labs have gone to crap isnt worth working for him. You'll be burned eventually.

Well it is a half truth......Dentist have gone to crap as well. So its a sh*t show.

 

[Brett Hansen CDT]

Pass the Dr to panthera sorry but any Dr that says all the labs have gone to crap isnt worth working for him. You'll be burned eventually.

To be fair, I'm constantly hearing about how the quality of dental lab work in my area has taken a nose dive since the pandemic. This is for removable and fixed. The NDX lab in my area gobbled up many small labs several years ago to create one big lab. They charge a lot less for their work than we do. I would assume they also compensate their employees less than we do. I think they lost a lot of techs during the pandemic while we didn't lose any and have actually added two new techs since 2019. I learned, from this forum, back in the 2000's that you shouldn't compete on price. That was never our model and we are absolutely seeing the benefits of that model now.

 

[JKraver]

How I see it if a Dr. bounces from lab to lab and they all suck, its probably not the labs. I could be wrong.

 

[Andrew Priddy]

 

[Brett Hansen CDT]

View attachment 41654

Then a denture would snap down over this bar into the locators?

 

[JKraver]

Then a denture would snap down over this bar into the locators?

This kind of bar needs so much room. This isn't what locators are designed to do. There are better attachments. A slip fit with a frame would be better and lower profile. If you are going to do this make sure you use the yellow bar inserts.

 

[Brett Hansen CDT]

This kind of bar needs so much room. This isn't what locators are designed to do. There are better attachments. A slip fit with a frame would be better and lower profile. If you are going to do this make sure you use the yellow bar inserts.

I'm not going to do it

 

[Andrew Priddy]

This kind of bar needs so much room. This isn't what locators are designed to do. There are better attachments. A slip fit with a frame would be better and lower profile. If you are going to do this make sure you use the yellow bar inserts.

and 4 would be overkill imo

 

[bigj1972]

 

[JonnyLathe]

Locator bars just aren't it. They are huge and require too much prosthetic space, which is seemingly rarely accounted for surgically unless you're talking all-on-x. Bars need I believe 13mm of prosthetic space and that's still really cutting it close for the denture strength in my opinion, the other option is the patient looking gummy (they will hate this) for the sake of prosthetic space.

Panthera makes something called a dolder micro bar which is much MUCH lower profile and uses little titanium riders in the denture, but they're challenging to process on.

But at the end of the day if the patient wasn't treatment planned for a bar at the onset it's going to be a huge headache.