The Whip Mix Blog

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter….oh my! These social networking sites and others like Pinterest and Google+, have all become an increasingly popular outlet for business both large and small to connect with customers.  If it isn’t already, social media should be playing an important role in the marketing and overall strategy of your dental laboratory or dental practice.

Whether you are a one-person dental lab or part of a large lab group, taking the leap into incorporating digital technology into your lab is a daunting task. Here are 8 things you should consider before making the leap.

It’s no surprise that brushing your teeth and flossing daily is the key components to good oral health. Yet for some absurd reason, we do not follow dentists’ recommendations. Work, kids, bills, and life in general prevent us from taking ten minutes out of our day to take care of our smiles.  There are 1,440 minutes in a day. Ten minutes added onto a daily routine can build self-confidence, increase your chances of finding a significant other, and maybe even land you that dream job you’ve been wanting. Everyone has their own reason as to why they have the oral hygiene that they have from aesthetic teeth to our biggest fears of bad breath, and cavities. These are superficial reasons, but in actuality there are far worse consequences that arise from poor oral hygiene such as:

In a previous blog post, Common Occlusion Terms Every Dental Lab Technician Needs to Know, we discussed common terms that are used in the dental industry and why knowing those terms are extremely important in communicating with the doctor or dental lab.  

With a growing emphasis on esthetics, more dentists are starting to take a face-bow record and sending it along with the case to the laboratory. Face-bow records can provide valuable information to not only the doctor, but also the dental technicians. However, many dental technicians don't see them on a regular basis and often forget how to use the record when creating the restoration.

By Lori Cable, CDA
Whip Mix Corporation
lcable@whipmix.com

When I visit dental schools and speak with faculty members, or attend dental meetings, I am amazed and impressed with the people who still use the articulators they had in dental school. Now, most of these great clinicians are my age or older but I don't dare mention any names. What does concern me is that our younger dental generation does not seem to follow the same pattern. Have they become a custom to a disposable world? In dentistry disposables are a great thing where asepsis is concerned but what about our equipment?

The physical and mechanical properties of Gypsum can be manipulated by procedures that influence the difference in solubility and growth of the dihydrate crystals; certain procedures can either enhance or hinder your Gypsum material in the mixing process. Achieving an ideal Gypsum mixture that produces an optimal working consistency can be challenging but there are guidelines you can follow that take the "trial and error" out of achieving a perfect Gypsum mixture. 

Halloween is finally here and for many of you that means 'Trick or Treating' and bags full of that ever so good candy! However, we all know that as good as that candy can be, it's not so good for your teeth. The American Dental Association has come out with a list of 10 suggestions to help parents maintain good oral health for their children around the Halloween holiday and throughout the year we thought we would share with you.

By Craig Pickett CDT, RG, T.E
Technical Support Manager, Whip Mix Corporation
cpickett@whipmix.com

Dentistry has a common language, and it is important that Technicians, Dentists, Dental Assistants & Hygienists are all speaking the same language.  If you cannot speak and write in this common language, then you cannot communicate in our industry.  

Written by Dr. Fernando Pessoa, Draper, Utah.
drpessoa@drapersmiles.com.

One of the most frustrating setbacks on an aesthetic dental treatment is having major discrepancies in the vertical axis of the anterior restorations at the try-in appointment, which commonly is a result of inaccurate recordings of the horizontal axis during the preparation and records appointment.