Ortho Wire Podcast

WireBending 101 Hands-On Class

2012-04-11T18:13:46Z

In case you guys didn't know, I am teaching a Wirebending 101 class this Friday at the DLAT (Dental Laboratory Association of Texas) Conference and Expo in Las Colinas, TX.

We will cover very basic wire bending techniques. I will have wire bending exercise on paper for everyone to use at the class and at home to practice.

I will try to take videos of me doing these same exercises and post the raw footage here in this post later. I am having issues with my iMac's HD so I hope that doesn't delay me to bad. I will also edit the videos later and make them into a podcast.

Here are the exercises:

Wire Bending - Basic

Wire Bending - Beginner

Wire Bending - Intermediate

Wire Bending - Advanced

more to come later...

Wire Bending 101

2011-12-17T22:34:10Z

I got a question on the YouTube channel asking how we make those bends and such. I thought I would make a short video of the basics of wire-bending. Hence, "Wire-bending 101". Enjoy, and ask more questions!

Tie Dye Retainer Design

2011-11-16T01:23:39Z

I had a dental lab technition from Iran email and ask me how I made my Tie Dye retainers. I wrote down some instructions on how we do that design here in our lab with a promise that I had some video of the procedure somewhere on my hard drive. Well here you go Farid! Hope this help explain my written instructions better.

Here are the writtten instructions for the design process:

Choose 3-4 acrylic colored powders.
Start on one half of the model
take one of the colored powders and make a 4-5 mm wide line along the lingual of the teeth
do not wet with the monomer yet!
take the next colored powder and make another 4-5mm line next to the last color
keep going until you have a half rainbow on the palate of the mouth.
take the monomer and carefully wet the powder just enough so the the colors do not run together
take a thick piece of Ortho wire and drag it throughout the wet acrylic from the palate to the teeth, so that it drags one color into the other.
I usually drag 2-3 times in one spot to really pull one color into the other
about 5 drag lines per side of the mouth looks good
then cover the new, wet design with clear powder to soak up the excess monomer.
do the other side
Cure, finish and polish like usual.

Practice, Practice, Practice!!!!

Mandibular Hawley W/ 4-4 Labial Bow

2011-10-24T01:52:46Z

I have a doctor that this is his standard MD retainer.

His preferences are:

Labial bow from distal of the first bicuspid to distal of first bicuspid on both MX/MD retainers.

Labial acrylic 3-3 on both MX/MD retainers.

Finger clasps mesial to the 6's on the MX retainer.

Acrylic trimmed to distal of the 6's on MX/MD retainer

Short wire anchor tags on MD ( so that the retainer is more flexible than if you ran the wire along the length of the acrylic)

This video is of the wire bending of the MD retainer. Bending wire distal of the 4's makes crossing the occlusion to the lingual side a little tricky! You can tell it took me a few tries to get it like i like (plus i edited out a few more minutes that you didn't see ;). But the doctor likes it that way so that he can have wire touching the 3's, therefore, more control of them. Also adding acrylic the the labial bow 3-3- really helps maintain tooth position and increases retention.

Habit Appliance (with Spikes)!

2011-09-17T23:16:17Z

Here is the next podcast covering the habit appliance.

I usually split my habit appliances into thumb-sucking and tongue-thrusting. But in this is kind of a combo appliance the "arches" in the palette are designed to break the thumb sucking habit by preventing the vacuum that is caused by the thumb coming in contact with the roof of the mouth. The doctor in this case decided to add "spikes" to the distal of the arches thereby detouring tongue thrusting. Again like I say in the podcast this is usually a last ditch effort to break this bad habit, so this appliance is not made to be comfortable.

Sorry this took so look we were super swamped in the lab for about 2 months! We are usually busy during the what I like to call "the back to school rush" but never this busy before! This is good, it keeps me out of trouble, but i didn't have any time to edit this video. I still have tons of footage to comb through, but editing it together in a coherent way takes more time than I thought!

Ortho Wire Podcast - Ep 5 Spring Retainer (Part 3)

2011-08-08T03:51:26Z

Here is the third and final part the the Spring Retainer series. I never realized how much footage I took during the whole process. I had to edit out some of the more repetative steps just for times sake. Next time I think I will split up the acrylic videos into 2 parts: 1. Pouring (or shooting) Acrylic, 2. Trimming acrylic. I think that way I can go into more detail.

Leave any feedback below or you can email it to RetainerDesigner@gmail.com

Ortho Wire Podcast Episode 4- Hydroflux

2011-07-26T01:24:48Z

I was asked on DentalLabNetwork.com about my Hydroflux welder that I had prevuiously mentioned on another thread. If you havent been to www.DentaLabNetwork.com yet you should, it is full of very helpful lab techs that help eath other out with anything reguarding Dental lab.

Sorry it has been awhile since I posted but I was on vacation in the moutains of New Mexico. I had to get out of this 100+ degree weather here in Texas! So, here is a short episode on the HydroFlux welder and how I use it.

Dont worry Part 3 of the spring retainer series is coming soon. I have to edit out a lot of boring acrylic steps, or figure out how to make it more interesting!

If you have any questions or comments, leave them below or email them to RetainerDesigner@gmail.com

Ortho Wire Podcast - ep3 -Spring Retainer Part 2

2011-07-11T01:33:00Z

Ok techs, here is the second part to the spring retainer project. This video covers the wire bending part of the spring retainers series.

Sorry it took me so long to get this out, I had to edit a lot of the actual wire bending steps assuming that most of my audience already knows how to bend wires. This video is intended for ortho techs that are pretty sufficent wire benders to begin with.

I may make some podcasts that are like a "beginners guide to wirebending" just let me know if anyone is interested.

Leave comments and questions below.

You can also email any tips, tricks or reviews of products along with any of your questions to RetainerDesigner@gmail.com

I may include some of these in future podcast episodes.

The Ortho Wire Podcast - ep2 - Zebra Retianer

2011-06-30T02:17:10Z

I just wanted to get a video out real quick to test the feed. I grabbed this video from my youtube.com feed. It is a series of pictures taken while I was making a zebra retainer. This is a good video to start with because this is where I started with my designs. I have changed a lot since then. I will post a video later of the new technique for comparison purposes. Sorry about the quality of some of the pictures, i obviously did not know how to work my camera ;) Enjoy and ask questions below.

The Ortho Wire Podcast - ep1

2010-05-22T17:13:38Z

This video is the first part in a series on spring retianers. This part will cover cutting out the lower anterior teeth and resetting them in wax to the ideal position.