John Wilson: It's that time of year to start planning your equipment purchases John Wilson: Hello my friends, John Wilson here and I have a question for you. Are you ready to finish this year strong? Well hey, its that time of year to start planning your year and equipment purchases. And im'here to tell you that Ivaclair has really stepped up their game and is offering some of the most incredible deals on mills and furnaces here at Sunrise. We've certainly been impressed with Ivaclair's quality, but more importantly how they've been a true partner to me and my laboratory. When you can invest in reliable technology and say, well, it's a no brainer, right? So you've been thinking about your first mill or an upgrade. I certainly encourage you to reach out to them today. Elvis: And of course we appreciate Ivaclar for their continued support. Alvis: I ran in a race to raise money for cancer charity Welcome to Voices from the Bench, a dental laboratory podcast. Send us an email@info voicesfrohebench.com and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Greetings and welcome to episode 304, 48 voices from the bench. My name is Alvis. Barbara: my name's Barbara. Elvis: Second place Barbara, if I mighte throw that out there. Yeah. So you sent me a text this morning. What are you doing? Races that don't benefit the foundation all of a sudden. Barbara: Yeah, but it's called Miles from Moffit. So they raised money for cancer and my soon be daughter in law, her really good friend, passed away from brain cancer at a very young age. And so yeah, we raised money and I ran my off. Let me tell you, I was really proud. So yeah, thank you for acknowledging that. I really enjoyed it. Elvis: Second place in your age group, man. Was it a big race or. Barbara: there was 2600. Elvis: That's a big race. Yeah, that's a big race. Speaker D: Yeahe. Elvis: Where was it? In Tampa? Barbara: It was downtown Tampa. And then there was twice as many people walking. So my son and his girlfriend and her father, they all walked. And so after the race I walked to them and then finished walking with them. So it was beautiful. Elvis: That's awesome. Did you just like smoke them twice? Barbara: Yes. How you doing? How you doing? Elvis: I'm doing good. Speaker D: Yeah. Elvis: I think when we recorded a couple days ago, I told you we had our first snowfall. Yeah, it's all gone now. There's no more snow. This is Indiana. People are out mowing yards today. Barbara: So it was 50 degrees this morning. I froze my ass off. I was so cold. And I wore shorts, of course, because I always wear shorts when I run, but so I'm complaining about 50. Speaker D: Just. Elvis: I just went for a run and it was 38. Barbara: Oh. I hope our listeners enjoy our talk about running, because I know we both love it. Sorry, guys. Elvis: You, you know, it's something they have to put up to get to the dental stuff, I guess. It's Thanksgiving already. And it's a late Thanksgiving and it just flew by Barbara: All right, let's do it. Elvis: Can you believe that this weekend is a short weekend? It's Thanksgiving already. Barbara: I know. And it's a late Thanksgiving and it just flew by. Flew by. Elvis: It's crazy that we're almost to the end of the year. Do you have big plans for Thanksgiving? Barbara: going to my sister's house and having it with my mom and my family. And it's going toa be a little sad this year for my boys, so I'm just trying to be as up as I can, but, moving on. Elvis: Yeah, you our tradition of the Brazilian steakhouse. Barbara: Oh, good for you. Elvis: We don't cook, we don't clean. We go, we eat, we come home, we nap. Barbara: Nice. Elvis: Let's talk about all the Great shows in 2025 Elvis: All right, so with it being almost the end of the year, of course we get to talk about all the Great shows in 2025. I know we've done this before and we'renna keep doing this because that is just how excited we are. It's not long before we're all going toa be in Las Vegas at Vision 21. That's January 16th to the 18th at the Caesar s Palace in Las Vegas, our good friend, Joe Young. Yes, congrats, fearless leaders of the fans of the Voices from the Bench Facebook group. He becomes presidente. Barbara: Congratulations. Elvis: Please, if you've never been divisioned, this is a great year to go and support a good friend of ours. Barbara: And then thanks to the wonderful people at Ivaclar, Elvis and I will once again be set up in their grand ballroom across from the registration desk during the LMT Lab Day Chicago 2025. And that is February 20th to 22nd. So excited. I know you are, and I am too. To be back in Chicago and see all of our amazing people in the industry come. Companies are starting to release the lineup of speakers and courses. I bet this one is going to be the biggest year yet. So make your plans and come see us and be on the podcast. Elvis: Yeah, we just recently found out they what celebrating 20 years of email. Barbara: 20 years at Emacs. Speaker D: Yes. Elvis: That's pretty big. Barbara: Yeah. And I bet they have a beautiful, awesome party and. Yeah, it's just congrats. Speaker D: I havea cl. What did Emacs do before emacs? Was everything subpar Elvis: So what did you do before Emacs did? Barbara: I mean, we used to do felt traffic. Elvis: Was everything just kind of subpar? Barbara: I mean, yeah, fully lay, fully layered. And then we did Empress. and then they moved into emacs. So yeah, thatss I think it was called eist and then another generation and then it was emac. So yeah, they're always doing something. Elvis: See guys took some time but they got there. And here it is 20 years later. Barbara: Exc sir. Mike Gordon will be attending IDS 2025 in Cologne, Germany next month Elvis: And then of course the dream comes true for both of us as the good people at Exocad take us once again international. Barbara: I know. Elvis: This is so great. I saw tickets just got released for IDS 2025. This is March 25th to the 29th. Yeah, you heard that right. Four days. Four days in Cologne, Germany. Now neither of us have been and we're excited to experience the biggest dental show in the world. So of course we hope many of our international fans come and find us and sit down and talk with us. I mean when we were in Spain we met so many people at the Exocad Insights. We just can't wait to see who we meet in Germany. Barbara: It'snna and hopefully they're alln to speak English. Elvis: They're going toa have to. Ok. And I am gonna make them all say their own name. Barbara: Yeah, that's a good idea. I'm down with that. Elvis: Yeah. Unless you're Smith. We got a problem. So this week we talked to a non dental person that got into our space because of the need for IT support. Mike Gordon has always been good with computers. After moving to Hawaii for a construction job. I'm a little jealous over here. Mike eventually opened a company that did it support for small businesses. It was getting contacted by a couple of GPS about setting up an in office 3D printer. Mike discovered a new path. Eventually he started 3Dn a dental. I love that name too. And to help offices with equipment and support. His newest venture is Direct Print Clear Aligners with Lex Creo. Mike explains how he is growing the AI for treatment planning the benefits to Direct Print and how the shape memory plays a huge role. And what exciting new things this workflow will allow us to print next. Michael Gord is a dental technician working in the 3D printing industry So join us as we chat with Mike Gordon. Voices from the bench the interview Barb and I are super excited today to talk to a gentleman that is in the 3D printing space. But what I'm interested in is Direct Alignr 3D Printinguse I know zero about it. Michael Gord. How are you sir? Speaker D: I'm m doing great. Thank you so much for having us'wel done. Elvis: Absolutely. So I want to learn all about what you're doing with Clear Aligners. We're going to get into all of that, but I don't think you have much of a dental background. So tell us about yourself and how you found dental. Speaker D: Absolutely, yeah. Again, thank you so much for having us. I'm Mike with 3 DNA Dental. We were founded about three and a half, four years ago now. Yeah. And basically I come from the IT space. So from very, very, very early on, from interesting turn of circumstances I have been in essentially IT support absolutely. My whole life. Helping people of another generation start to adopt these tools as they became useful was always a passion for me. Barbara: You mean like an older generation? Speaker D: I mean not necessarily only older, but certainly that is a factor. I think like in general there are just some people that are. That it comes naturally to in terms of it being intuitive and then also just a passion for technology and what it can allow for in terms of efficiency, even though that's not always the case. Barbara: I'm one of the other peopleeah. Hey, I'm the people that need you to come show me. Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. If you didn't exist I wouldn't have a job. So I'm all. Elvis: The nice thing is is Barba braces it though a lot of people think they can and they shouldn't. Barbara: But barbs I try. Let's just put it. Elvis: But when you say IT support Mike and you talking like phone support for you servers and that car. Speaker D: Yeah, it's exactly right. So actually, so when I was in seventh grade, my school got this grant to implement a bunch of new technologies. So we basically ended up being able to put in like three new computer labs and a few other technologies like smart board and things like that for the teachers to use in class. And myself and one other student sort of were super passionate about it and they didn't really have anybody within the school system already that was ready to take it on. So we basically got hired by the school to implement this technology over a summer. Wow. Elvis: In seventh grade. Speaker D: I know, Crazy. It turns out actually they started to pay me. So you know, I got myself a nice computer, and a little audio system in my room. And then they found out that actually they weren't allowed to pay me because I was a miner. So they ended up giving me like school credits instead. So I did pretty well with that in the end. Elvis: What err, are we talking, what was it like windows? Speaker D: What? Windows 95 for sure was that thing. Elvis: O wow, that's awesome. Speaker D: Yeah, so very good fun. And I just had an incredibly lucky set of circumstances to be Able to, you know, set up labs and support them throughout my whole, literally throughout my whole high school time. I was also like, you know, the guy that went around and fixed stuff so and set up the stuff for all the teachers and you know, pretty much pushed my life in a certain direction. I'd say. Elvis: Sure. Barbara: Wow. Speaker D: When I left school I still didn't exactly have a goal of exactly where I wanted to end up. And my parents are both medical doctors, so there was some expectations there. Yeahah. Barbara: No pressure. Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. I did pull the trigger on going to college, but it didn't last very long before I realized I just didn't know what I wanted to do. So I stopped going to school and I actually started doing construction, which was also in my background through my dad and I did a lot of projects and I also just helped out a lot of friends with some construction work. Over time with my IT and construction sor of somehow came together a good amount and ended up picking up a job in Maui, Hawaii as a green electrician. Barbara: What's a green electrician? Speaker D: Meaning somebody with no experience green like you know, oh, oh, green state. Elvis: I thought it was environmental front. Barbara: Honestly that's where I was headed in my brain. Speaker D: Yeah, I feel like green is just getting thrown around these days. It must feel confused. So yeah, I ended up in Hawaii and doing construction. And then when the 2008 market crash hit, shortly thereafter, there really was no work out here. So I ended up started going back in it, starting an IT company out here for small business IT and hardware repair and custom hardware creation. So like we would create computers for clients and whatever else they needed hardware wise and then implement like software and get them sort of more efficient from running their business perspective. And then we also had a like you know, walk in repair service for computers and cell phones and tablets and all that kind of stuff. Sweet. And during that stretch while I did that for about 13 years, we got into 3D printing in about 2012. Just like you know, regular maker bot style, G code, you know, like PLA printers, things like that. Elvis: Just as a hobby. Speaker D: It was a bit of a hobby. I mean we had ideas, we did some prototyping for people and it was super early on in a way where it was still very hobby esque and just as an industry. Yeah, I'd say not to say that nobody was doing something really cool but I think you had to really land in the right place for that. It wasn't like an easy part 3 at all in 3D printing. So it was my goal to get into 3D printing from at least that time, if not before. And I'd been following several of the technologies. So about four years ago, three and a half years ago, I was approached by a couple of GPs who wanted to implement 3D printing in their clinic and really were starting from scratch. So I went through the process of what it looked like to implement 3D printing about at that time. And for me it just was like a night and it was just a bell went off in my head and I said, you know, instead of trying to make it work with a very low profit industry of cell phone or all this electronic repair, where the reality is that it's a throwaway culture and we're really not valuing the repair side of that, which is, you know, hey, yeah, life is what it is. right. We'renna have to move with the. Elvis: There's a reason why there's not a hundred TV repair places anymore. Speaker D: Right. Not like the old days. Elvis: Yeah, no. Speaker D: So, yeah, I made the pivot. I want to go, I want to stick with what I'm good at in terms of IT support and really training and helping people take advantage of these tools, but do it in a place that can be more valued and has a lot more, higher ceiling, let's say. Denal moved from dentures to 3D printing for dental purposes So that's the move that we made into dental. And at first we were all about, you know, dentures. We were doing some, all on ne work. We were doing implant crowns. We were really trying to get these, the GPS I was working with into some really cool spaces. And it went really well. Like we started a design service actually out of Nepal. Barbara: Wow. Speaker D: so that we actually donated some equipment there and trained them on exocad and set up computers over there. And then they could, they still do actually help those GPS with their designs. So we were expecting the design side of things to be a big portion of the business at this point. I've personally kind of gotten out of that area. I mean, not to say we don't do design, of course we do. But it, it's not where I put my main focus. My main focus is really on the equipment, capital equipment itself and the implementation of that equipment and then ongoing support. Right. Cause for us, like we saw pretty early on that 3D printing and Denal would need, if it wasn't just gon to be the early adopters and we're reallynna get to mainstream adoption, there would need to be a real copy paste solution. Not to mention when you have staff turnover, you need a backup plan. As to how you're going to handle that. Right. So that's really how we sort of formed our company was to fill that niche. General practitioner Dennis says 3D printing is totally clinic dependent Barbara: How did the gps, that's general practitioner Dennis find you guys? Speaker D: So I live in Maui. Those are people that live on Maui. So it was their personal connection actually. Ah, basically they were like oh yeah, 3D printing. And one of their dental hygienist is actually a good friend of mine who we do outrigger canoe paddling together. Barbara: Yeah. Speaker D: So she mentioned my name, we connected and that's, that's kind of how it started. Barbara: So it was, it was a friend of a friend again. Elvis. Speaker D: Yeah. Elvis: And when was this? Speaker D: Three and a half, four years ago. I'm not. Elvis: Okay, so 3D printing was around in our industry. What did the GPS want to print? What do they want to get into? Speaker D: Well, you know, I think that a lot of people start with just night guards as the. Speaker D: Obvious target. It's totally clinic dependent I would say and specialty dependent for sure. But this particular clinic we were interested in night guards just to start with, kind of get our feet wet. And then we went pretty much straight into dentures and then through our process getting into dentures we were more and more and just because of the connections that one of the GPS had we got into more all on X work. So I got some really good experience there. Elvis: Is this where you learned all your dental? Speaker D: Yeah, well, I mean not since then I think. You know, I've worked with a lot of different doctors now and I picked it up along the way I'd say. But in the lab world I think it seems like people either are family to the denneal lab world or yah, not anywhere. yeah, definitely. Most of my dental knowledge has come in the last four years for sure. I didn't. Barbara: So y. When they contacted you, did they know like what printer they wanted and what they wanted to do, what they were interested in or did you have to research everything for them? Speaker D: Yeah, the second thing. So that was why, that's why I got the impression that like this was not something that people would reasonably be able to take on on their own without really shifting their focus and just sort of hoping for the best, you know? Barbara: Yeah. Speaker D: And you know, four years ago there was there were like maybe 10 dental specific 3D printers that you had to choose from and all the resins and which ones limited you to which resins and blah, blah, blah. But now there's probably 50 different dental specific 3D printers. And you know, I'm not sure anybody can exactly tell the difference anymore. On certain aspects. Elvis: I don't know how people choose them anymore. There's so many. Speaker D: Well, hopefully they work with us and then we can choose, we can help them choose. Elvis: There you go. Barbara: Yeah. So what, how do you make your choice when there's like four, so four or five Back then, what were you looking for? Speed, I mean, materials. Speaker D: I think that primarily I think like first you need to think, what's your target? What are the workflows that are going to add the most value to the practice? So that's step one from there. Biocompatibility, I think is right up there with like accuracy. So by compatibility and accuracy I would put like right after you find your targets and then from there for sure, speed, build, volume, you know, the viscosity of the resins it can handle. So the level of heating it can handle and the downward pressure, like the pressure, the force of the motors, let's say the separate motors involved is a factor. So it really, there's a laundry list of things to consider. And also, you know, like what kind of space do you have in your clinic and which aspects of this make sense to take on in clinic and which aspect, which, which by the way, when I first was getting into this, I was like, oh, within five, ten years, like everything's going to be 3D minute, you know what I mean? And at this point I feel like it's not to say that can't happen at this point, but I definitely am less convinced that it will make sense to do all things in clinic, like by any means. right. Like there's gonna be plenty of things that need to stay in the lab world. And I think that what I would like to see happen is a, you know, a sort of. Which is of course already in existence, but the partnership between the doctors that are performing in clinic printing. Speaker D: With a lab that understands that and has, let's say a compatible style of printing, means that they can be the backup plan when the clinicians don't have the staff for the time and they can take on the aspects that they don't want. So for example, when we start talking about clearigners, it's going to be more applicable. But essentially like a lot of doctors, it'make sense in their clinic to do the first few trays just so that they have that advantage of immediate delivery to the patient. Or at least let's say very close to immediate, depending on what they want to do. And then beyond that, maybe they sub out the rest of the lab so that they don't have to actually do that and maintain the staff and the effort there. So it just depends, it really depends on the size of the clinic, the cost of square foot for their establishment and all that. Like, there's a lot of factors that play into it, but it's clear to us at this point that there's going toa need to be a very long term and healthy relationship between the labs and those in clinic labs to do the best job we can and to be reliable in the way that it needs to be reliable. Elvis: No, I completely agree. I mean I used to walk into a dental office and if they had a ceric machine or if I saw a printer, I'd be like, yeah, I'm out, don't need you. But now I've totally pivoted and I'm like, let's talk about all the stuff you can't do or you don't want to do. And some of my favorite conversions these days are ones where we design and they print right? Yeah, I don't need to grind on a denture anymore. Let do it right, you know, and it works beautifully. Speaker D: One of the early offerings we had that we thought was maybe unique at the time, but hopefully, you know, for me, I would definitely hope a lot of people were doing this, but it was to deliver the design files, the digital design. So we send them a link to make sure they're happy with the actual design. Know to the degree that people can really tell through 3D software. Because I think m the whole art in and of itself just to review digital design digitally is not that easy. But anyway, delivering digital, approved digital designs already nested, sliced and ready to literally hit print on their printer. Right. And that. And we even tried to get to the point where we could sort of give them, I had this whole like us like remote USB NAS system, like a network attached storage drive so that I could like upload things to a USB that we gave them the equipment for, literally just pull that. One of their employees could pull that USB out and put in their printer and hit print, you know. But the reality was there was some security concerns about that and it just wasn't. And now again, like for me, I think that design, AI and the world of design is coming together so quickly that instead of more being involved in the direct designing myself, what I'm more interested in is helping in the collaboration from the doctors to the people doing the designing to the AI companies because I feel like in the long term And I'm working with Dr. Jean Maris, like an orthodontist. He's working really hard on the ability to use our understanding of biomechanical forces and how liners really work with AI. If we arenna try to move towards having some AI help in planning that's truly useful and of the kind of quality it needs to be. We really want to get to the point where we can share information from many different sources. A little bit like Bluetooth. So I don't know if you guys are aware, but like Bluetooth originally was just an idea. It's a standard that you know, many, many, many different companies use so that they all are compatible in some sense. Right. and it was something that, to sit down and agree upon to make that happen. And I feel like that's what I would like to see happen on the digital design side where for we're kind of focused on ortho right now, but not necessarily like we help doctors implement all kinds of different workflows. And one of the problems is, you know, finding solid designers that are consistent and have a turnaround time that they can rely on. But also again, working with many different designers. I just feel like no one group of designers is gonna have enough data for AI I just feel like no one group of designers is gonna have enough data to do a good job with AI and then ongoing. Right. The best way to have the best AI would be to continue to feed it the best data consistently and as often as possible. So some kind of a grouping of that would be so cool to like work that out as a system where, you know, it's almost like a social media but you actually get to get paid. Right. So according to the amount of data you put in, you get paid like that. And then there's different versions of how you can submit your data where we can scrape all the information that would be highly relevant and useful like patient age and a lot of different factors that can help us know what works and what doesn't and then not to mention just actual results. Right. So like needing not only for the plan to get implemented, but we need scans throughout the process to see what, what's actually been going on. Right. Elvis: So you're creating this, you're creating this kind of global network of AI through clear aligners. Speaker D: Yeah. I mean that's where we're focused right now. Right. With direct print aligners. A big part of that is the planning aspect and there's, there's quite a few different softwares out there that people can use to do setup. And again M is it's like each of these companies is going toa have their own version of this AI. And they do already. Right. But it's, you know, nobody really, you know, UAB is. It's like you click, you click the setup thing and it kind of gets you close and then you go from there. I don't know that anyone else has really gotten to where it's super useful yet, but ultimately my argument is that my understanding of AI indicates to me that the best version of it would be a shared version, one that everybody. Ye. I just push together. Elvis: I just worry that dental is gonna be able to come together like that. Speaker D: I know, right? I know. Elvis: We love our closed systems and everybody has their own version of AI and. Speaker D: Well, nobody's ever had AI before and frankly we still AI. Right. Ah, I think that there's an argument from a. From two points, I think. Like, I think there's a big moral argument to be made about the quality of care that can come from a collaboration here and then I agree. I also think that one of the issues in the past and the reason why we are sort of like. I don't know, I don't want to say enemies, but it kind of feels that way a lot of the time where like companies feel like if it's a competitor, there's no collaboration available. Not to say everyone like that, but that certainly has been present in my experience. I think that they need to get paid. Right. Like it can't just be. Like it needs to be financially viable for everybody. Right? Yeah. And if that were the case, then I think that maybe there could be a collaboration. But I don't like right now. It's really. We have it as an idea where we're approaching. We've approached quite a few of the planning software companies about it and we have some definite interest on that side. But again, for me, I think this is a much larger project. It's really a conversation to be had many times over and. And I don't know what it'll look like in the end. It's more like to me that it's a conversation about what we'd like to accomplish and then maybe we can all work together to get there. Now we're getting into metal 3D printing which is much more affordable Barbara: So do you work mostly with Dennis at this point and no labs or are you. A little bit of labs. Speaker D: Very little bit of labs. We have some good connections on the LA side and we I believe Jim Coll us was on your. On your podcast. Ye. Ye. We're friends with him and so he's helping us kind of introduce ourselves to the lab world. A bit more since now we're getting into metal 3D printing, which I think, and when I say the reason we've gotten into it now is because it is much more affordable than it has been by, you know, massive percentages. Oh yeah. It's still a workflow that to me does not integrate well within clinic. Right. So for me, as we get, it requires us to get a stronger relationship going with the lab world. and because I, like I said, I've sort of converted a bit to thinking that at no point should we even want to get rid of labs just because there's going to be this movement to in clinic. We really want to continue this collaboration. So it's a win win for us to get involved with the lab world at this point more deeply. And then again, because of the metal 3D printing, there's some really cool stuff in the pipeline on that. First of all, like I said, because price points are coming down and quality of prints going up, but also recycling or upcycling so all this. One of the companies we're working with for the metal powders, they have a, it's from 6K additive. They aren't. So they're not specifically in the dental space at this point, but they have from a theoretical perspective, really the best way to create powders at the most in the most uniform and smallest particle size that I've come across. So, and that's one of the big challenges currently that in the stepping ladder of making 3D printing in metal better is having a really consistent source of powder that has that really small size particle and is able to be uniform throughout. Right. Because, the way that 3D printing with SLM or Laser Metal 3D printing, it heats the powder extremely hot. But in that process it kind of has like a movement of the adjacent powder or surrounding powder and the smaller particle size and the more uniform they are, the more predictable that is. Barbara: Right, Yep. Elvis: Makes sense. Yeah. Speaker D: So, yeah, anyway, so because of the 60k additive company using a new form of heating through their system is called a unim melt system and it's a plasma heating system that was developed actually in the process for creating graphene originally. Barbara: Wow. Speaker D: So these are all like super different worlds, right? Like not really in the dental world, but the repercussions of this advancement are so obvious to me for dental, you know, so we're really trying to connect from a really fundamental way why things should and would be the best option with the right people who can do the work and who have the connections and the end users. and the beauty of this is that we can actually take your milled titanium and stainless steel. Hopefully at some point we'll be able to do chromium cobalt as well in the near future. But we're able to purchase people's milled scraps and aspects of the pucks that they weren't able to take advantage of and turn that into the powder that they can use on their printer. Barbara: Yeah, you know, every lab listening is going ding, ding, ding, ding, ding right now. Speaker D: So now when I want to approach labs, I don't want to approach them about them spending money with me. I want them to know that I might be able to purchase their scraps, you know, so it's like, wow, it'a win, win. I think is what that's really what we're going for. right, is we're all about support, we're all about implementation of technology. And yeah, we've been focused on the clinic side because that for us in the 3D printing side was a larger target. But the reality is this type of work, the breadth of its usefulness is really wide. So we don't want to limit ourselves, and only help clinicians either. Barbara: So you actually went out to a company that was outside the industry that had this technology and was like, hey, do you know that you can print copings for, for teeth? Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, to some degree. I mean, I mean, the powder, the company that makes the powder is not that interested in what you use it for at the end of the day. You know what I mean? I mean, of course they need to know. They need to know the answer so that they can create the product the way they need to, but their process is all about creating the powder itself. And then again, they're involved in many different, industries and they can. The same system works for many different materials, right? Barbara: Yeah. Speaker D: A lot of the companies we work with, with these advancements, they see it as a big advantage to have a company like ours who already has their foot in the door considerably with dental and with this particular market. And for them, they don't want to have to like, start from scratch and start marketing their product just because they realize it's applicable to that industry. Because which one are they going to choose? You know, like, they could go to many different versions of the same issue. So, yeah, we've had some really great luck or great, great success or, experience so far. When we approach these companies about our ideas on how their product would really do well in dental, they're very happy to have Us help them implement and introduce it and all that. Barbara: Yeah, because it's something that they might obviously didn't think of that it could be purposeful for. Speaker D: And you know, we take a percentage, of course, but they're going toa benefit from the idea of that industry. So it's just a. We're looking for win wins all the way. Yep. The price tag to get involved in metal 3D printing as a lab is high Elvis: So you mentioned, let's see, chrome, cobalt, titanium and stainless steel. Those are three metals that ye. That people are pruning. Speaker D: Yeah. Those are the most common printed materials for sure at this point. Bo or bago, depending on how you pronounce are. They're popular on the metal 3D printing side. So they've got some. They've got all three of those powders up and going. And you know, like I said, like till recently, I think that the price tag to get involved in metal 3D printing as a lab is in the upward of, let's say quarter million dollars. Right. Well now we can get you in for under hundred, well under 100,000. You know what I mean? With all the equipment that you need, you know, this would be a price tag that would be in some ways affordable for in clinic. Like they could make that pay for itself with. Depending on the type of practice they're running, you know, depending what they're making like PA rpe'or copings, like you're saying. Or titanium bars if they do a lot of all on X, you know. But the reality is like the process of 3D printing also requires sintering and you need nitrogen generator, you need vacuum systems, you need a metal cutting, you know, like bandaw. You need, there's a lot. Plasma polisher would be ideal. You need a laser welder. Like there's a lot of things that make it a little, much less approachable, let's say for the in clinic perspective. Elvis: Yeah. It's not off the printer in a light box. Speaker D: There's a lot in two hours and you have a test print. You know, it's not like that. Elvis: Yeah, but our office is what, gonna print their own frames? Why would they even. I mean, I guess. Speaker D: Yeah. I mean if you do enough RPs and you do enough titanium, you know, like prosthodontis. If they had a multiple prosthodontists practice and had a small lab that they implemented this in, I think that they again, I mean, you know, you can divide up each case, and see how many cases it would take you to pay this capital equipment off. Sure. The reality is like definitely under a Year is very feasible for a lot of these people and with most of the capital equipment that we sell. Barbara: Yeah. Because if you add up a year's worth of your lab bill and all the money that you're paying out on it and you turn around and. Speaker D: 'But that's a very short version of the equation. Right. like obviously there's also all the actual work itself and then having the right staff and keeping the right staff and the hassle with that. So I think, like I said, there's zero doubt to me that a ongoing relationship between the in clinic labs and the real labs should be, or the, let's say purposefully, labs meant only for that purpose. You know, we'll have an ongoing relationship indefinitely. To me. Elvis: Yeah. Barbara: I mean it's not like there's a lot of ton of labs doing frames anymore, honestly. Speaker D: Right. I don't. Yeah. And even on coping'like adding porcelain and I mean, you know, again, I'm new to dento comparatively, so it's kind of nice for me because I don't have prejudgments on what to go after. I rely a lot on the people I meet and who I talk to and the demand that I notice in the moment. You know. But having said that, it's obviously a disadvantage as well to just not be aware of certain things. Elvis: Well, are people printing implant interfaces or is that still. Are we shying away of that, like unit? Speaker D: About the custom abutments. Yeah, you know, I don't know at this point if anybody is 3D printing custom abutments, but I think that that is exactly my kind of. My point is that those are targets that are much more approachable now than they were two years ago from an accurate 100%. And from a polishing perspective right now some of the 3D printing metal, 3D printing companies have essentially created a hand in hand system with CNC. So you 3D print your part and then you CNC you mill the sort of exact dimension so that you have the accuracy that you need while having like 95% less waste or something like that. So's also that option. But the nicest and you know, for sure frameworks like RPE frameworks and a lot of different, orthodontic and just in general appliances, metal appliances can be printed now without the need for milling at all with just polishing. Elvis: Seems weird to me that you would print then mill it. Speaker D: I know, right? It does, does. But if you look at the savings from the materials themselves, because these are very expensive materials. Too. So it does. And the equipment, you know, milling equipment has come down so much that I think it's approachable. You know, and ultimately, I mean my goal would be to not need a mill, just in the sense that like, know we want to be as efficient as possible. So if we didn't need it, then that would be the best version. Small, uniform particle size is going to be huge advantage in 3D printing So again, that's what drove me towards 6k additive and their ability to create 10 micron sized uniform particles that are round in shape. That's a very, very special thing to have. You know, like generally particle sizes go up to, you know, anywhere from 150 microns to let's say 40 or 50. I don't think there's a lot of companies able to go down to anywhere near 10 microns in a consistent way. That's what's very exciting is we might be able to move towards not needing that milling step. Right. Depending on the tolerances that you need. Right? Elvis: Yeah, but it's more of the powder than it is the printer then. Speaker D: Yeah, I mean if you had a really cheap fiber laser or the type of lasers that you're using weren't ideal, then I think that that could still be the weakness. But in terms of like, for me I see these technologies sort of step stoning themselves up a little bit like a circular stair, you know, where now we, the limitation is the material and the material science needs to improve and then it improves and then it's like, well, if only we had a printer that was able to take advantage of it, then they make that and then it's like, oh, if only we had software that allowed us to do this efficiently. And you know, mean, I see what you're saying, he's going up and up and up. And so for me right now, the powder, from what I understand in the introduction I've had in metal 3D printing, it's clear to me that that uniform particle, small, extremely small, uniform particle size is going to be a massive, massive advantage. Again, most, because you're, you don't want a lot of work after you're done printing. It needs to be as efficient as possible for it to make sense. and that's where we're headed. So I think that, yeah, the small particle, small uniform particle was, was one of our bigger challenges and hopefully this can make us move on to the. Elvis: Next big challenge, you know, which is a new printer. The cycle continues. Speaker D: You know, there's different size printers with different numbers of lasers depending on how quickly you want to print and how big the Build volume is. Yeah, for sure. You're never going to stop needing to invest in capital equipment as we improve. But do we really want that to not be the case? I mean, realistically, you know, improvement is in our blood, I think. Elvis: Yeah, sure. Barbara: So your companies like Trifold, you do consulting, you do education, and you do suppl. So you're selling the equipment and you do educating and training with it. Speaker D: Yep. Barbara: Or do you do like a lot of different education and training? Speaker D: Yeah, well, whenever we bring on a product, we try to set up webinars and trainings for ourselves, obviously, but then also webinars with the CEOs usually or whoever in the company makes the most sense to introduce products in a way that we get to the ground floor on why this is a good idea, this, why is this useful and explain it from the ground up. You know what I mean? So that there's not just, it's not just a sales tactic. It's like, okay, you know, here's a challenge that we have in the lab space. Here's an idea on how we've been able to solve it, and here's some examples of people who are already doing that. and now it's a question of price point training. And do you have that clientele to be able to make that cost on that return on your investment? Barbara: So you kind of hand hold them the whole way. Speaker D: That's definitely the idea. And at the same time, I think it's the hand holding, you know, is very custom also. Right. Because different users have a very different level of need. And I think that's one of the things that's been missing in some of the larger companies. You know, as you get larger as a company, you fundamentally get less efficient. I think we can, we've all seen it. Ande, you know, you just have to look at any large structure and notice how it becomes less efficient. But the idea for a large company to be able to tailor their service in a way that allows for all these different versions of users is much more difficult than a smaller company like us where we really can tailor our price points and our. And you know, the type of support that you need based on just your needs. So, yeah, for sure, that's a big part of our business, a big part of what makes us unique. Smart is based in Hawaii, but are you in the U.S Barbara: So you're based in Hawaii, but are you in the U.S. do you have. Elvis: somewhere like Hawaii is in the US Part? Barbara: I mean, you know, in, in the. Speaker D: Mainland, El, everyone's like, you know what she means? But yeah, ye. Thank you My partner, Paul Wilkins. I don't know if maybe we weren't live yet when we talked about it, but Paul Wilkins is my business partner. He's been in orthodontic sales for about 25 years, has just a huge number of connections in the industries, worked for a lot of the big companies, and also was a founder and owner of Orthot Technology, which was a company that got bought out by Henry Shine some time ago. So we have a considerable presence through Paul on the mainland. And then definitely our goal is to stay light. You know, from an overhead perspective as a company, I think we'do a better job for our clients if we only take on overhead in the ways that make sense, you know, so we, we try to stay remote as much as we can because it saves them money and saves us the need to have different offices and whatnot. And then in terms of how we ship equipment, we often have drop shipping deals with our suppliers, but not always. You know, we don't necessarily inventory all the things that we sellw. But then, then from the support side of things, we also. Because of my background in the consumer electronic repair world, I have a lot of connections with people who need to pivot into a space that has a higher ceiling from a profit margin and usefulness perspective, or let's say societal usefulness perspective. So I have partnerships with different repair and IT people who can jump in for us and travel to different locations or work with people in their area through us. So it's kind of just a really cool little nerd network. Barbara: Yeah, I know. I love that it's important though, because I mean, once you have a client, their needs change and you know, they need more training or they need different equipment, they need you to stay updated and then you can just keep, you know, bring them more value, I guess. Speaker D: Is what I, I think that it's, it's a function of the fact that, like this, when you implement digital technologies of any kind, but certainly in dental and within a practice where the bottom line is very important, I think what we all will benefit the most from is from sharing our experiences on where we run into problems and how we repair those problems. And a, you know, what we really need is a middleman like us or middle person like us, where we're the ones who introduce sort of, we adopt the technology early, we run through those problems ourselves, we implement them m in several or many different places who then also have an exponentiated version of these problems. and then because we get all the feedback from all those experiences we get better and better and better at that copy paste workflow, which again is what will benefit everybody the most. Rightso. And you course get that backup plan of, hey, you know, my staff members is getting married and leaving or whatever it is. And, now I need to, now I'm struggling, I'm struggling to replace this, this need. And we have the ability to help you do that within your clinic, as well as work with a network of labs who, or hopefully will be moving towards us more. We have a couple people, but it's. That's what we would like is a network of other labs, partner labs, that again, share the same equipment, let's say share the same workflows to some degree. and they're able to be your backup plan. Yeah. Elvis: So if an office gets equipment from you and for whatever reason it's not working, the person that ran it quit. You can also produce what they were printing. Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, we, as a company, we work with labs to make the prosthetics. We're not doing that ourselves for the most part. Oay some trial stuff, you know, like, so that people can get introduced to products and to finish products especially. But, for the most part, we really don't have an interest in doing the lab work ourselves. Elvis: Smart. Speaker D: Yeah, course we have a. Where we do this work, but in terms of doing it at scale, that's just not our goal. It took multiple companies to advance 3D printing in the shoe sole market Elvis: Yeah, I want toa talk about clear aligners. Cause, I mean, the whole reason I kind of got interested and this is all fascinating, but direct to print clearliners. Why is that just now a thing I don't understand. We've been pretty night guards like crazy. Speaker D: Right. Elvis: What's been the holdup? Speaker D: Yeah, that's an excellent question, and one that I think is, not asked often enough, but essentially leave it, up to me. Yeah, essentially it's really hard. And the reason that it's super, super hard is largely on the material science side to get the right, the exactly. The right formula that's first of all biocompatible, which's been a big, big, big struggle there. But also being able to print at half a millimeter wide in an acccurate way with a flexible material, especially when you're printing and it's warm, you know, during the printing process. It's an elastomer. So it is a whole study of that takes like multiple. Has taken multiple companies to advance that ability on, believe it or not, the shoe sole market. Barbara: The shoe sole market. Speaker D: What, what, what has really allowed both of the company it's not fair. The main company, in fact the company we represent now that we distribute for. Elvis: I mean, Dr. Schol. We can thank Dr. Schol for clear aligners. Speaker D: I mean, maybe not directly, but maybe in part. Elvis: No, that's the only person I do. Speaker D: I'm sure you guys have heard of Carbon. Barbara: Yes. Speaker D: Y. Yeah. Right. Carn was hired early on, to do shoe soles for Adidas. And I want to say they did some Nike work as well, but I'm not 100% sure. Ca. There's another company that less people have heard of but that we're really excited about and work with named Lux Creo. And they are. They partnered up with Asics and I believe, New Balance running shoes. Barbara: Baby. Speaker D: Yeah. So they. Elvis: Barbs brand. Speaker D: Yeah. They created the shoe soles for them and through that process had to really, really nerd out on that 3D printing accurately of an elastomeric product while having the strength requirements needed to be able to run on, you know, so it was just hilarious. Beautiful challenge on that side of things. That translated extremely well into dental clear aligners in a sort of fortuitous way. Right. Like, not. I don't think anybody was originally planning that when they started the project. So that's, I think majorly why it was tried many, many times from the dental side looking out and just never quite got there. Elvis: Yeah. Speaker D: But these companies that had that experience from those outside industries were able to take what they learned and bring it into this industry. And it's just been, it's been extraordinary. Like, it really is a game changer. Lux Creo has created a one click workflow for 3D printing So, yeah, I think we should move into talking more and more about Lux Creo here because they're. We're. Yeaheah. Elvis: Yeah. Because so what, they've found the formula for the resin so it could print thin and hot. Am I thinking this right? Speaker D: Yeah. So some of you. Yeah. So we're printing. We're printing at around 40C while we're printing. So, there's definitely a lot of stretchiness during that printing process that you have to account for. And so what they were able to do and you know, they created their own printer, therefore printer technology. I mean, it's a DLP 385, so it's not unique in that way. But it's. But the accuracy they're able to get from it stems from partly, of course, the quality of the parts that they use in their printer and the sturdiness of the printer, which is a very heavy. Very. Well, I shouldn't say, like, you know, obscenely heavy or anything, but definitely very robust compared to certain other brands. Then of that their heating system is like unbelievably efficient. Like it's pretty much my favorite part of their whole system from a mechanical perspective. And then the other beauty is that they create their material profiles all in house at a level of detail that's just beyond what anyone that's not a complete ecosystem is doing. And then because they're able to do that with, because they have the software and the hardware and the the ability to sort of, and the creation of the resins. And now by the way, they've partnered up with many different resin companies that are sort of the leaders in the industry and pretty much every different aspect of dental M. But their printer, because they're printing on the printer with these materials and making the profiles themselves, they're able to print, test for accuracy scan compared to the digital model. And then they're able to actually not only tweak their parameters from a printing perspective, but they are able to tweak their software. So they're actually creating digitally. They're changing the file itself during the slicing process or even throughout the design process to have thinner and thicker areas because of the way it's going to print, you see. Barbara: Wow. Speaker D: Like it knows it well, it's based off of experience. But the fact is that you have to, you have to print, find the inaccuracy adjust. Print, find the inaccuracy adjust. You see what I mean? And not just adjust the profile, which can be very limiting in some ways. Right. Like there's 50, 50, 60 different parameters you can change on a 3D printer in terms of the printing process. But those don't necessarily get you the result that you need. At the end of the day there's a, a marriage between the digital design itself and the printing process in order to get us where we need to go, not to mention the physical equipment itself. But at this point, DLP 385, like this is stuff we have done for a long time. We're very, very good at it. And I think that the improvements there will be small and incremental until we have, let's say, a paradigm shift of some kind. Barbara: Wow. Speaker D: So that's one of the major reasons that we're big fans of Lux Gro. I mean, many reasons I guess I just spouted off. But yeah, but no, I really do think that they're sort of, they're one, by the way, they have a legitimate one click workflow, in both their design and Then nesting and slicing software workflows. Barbara: Yeah. What does that mean? One click. Like that's it, one click. Speaker D: Ye. so essentially you tell the software what it is you're trying to make. You upload the file that you designed or that're that you need designed. And it literally will do that through an AI process. Barbara: Wow. Speaker D: So you want to make a night guard, it will make the night guard for you through an AI process. If you want to make a retainer, it will do that through an AI process. If you have a plan that you've made in a planning software and it's a compatible planning software right now, then you can export your models and your PTS files, which are like the files that allow for your CNC cutter or your laser cutting machine to know what your trim line is going toa be. you export that all into one directory. and this software is able to take everything from that directory and create the aligners and support them and slice them and put them ready to print. Barbara: Wow. Speaker D: Which was a huge problem, you know, in the past, like the other versions of Clearliner that we worked with, you know'been really fun and interesting and we've learned a lot, but at the end of the day, they were just not ready to be implemented in clinic. And there were a couple other issues that we, moved away from them for. So Lux Crew at the end of the day has best blown the competition out of the water in our perspective. Elvis: But did I hear you still had to trim them? Speaker D: No. Yeah. No. So there's no trimming of the aligners at this point. You do have to remove the supports, which with the reason why we're huge fans of Lux Gro is that their supports are all. They're digitally designed in the design software, like instead of a. So I'm sure you guys are to some degree familiar with slicing softwares for 3D printers. Barbara: Yeah. Speaker D: You normally, you, you have this software that sort of detects islands and low points and then create structure in order to solve those problems. Right. Well, instead of doing it that way, what Lux Creo does is they actually identify what the trim line is because we've given it that information and it creates a structure that moves to that trim line. Right. So it's not taking an analysis and then performing from there, only it's actually working from the trim line itself so that the supports don't, you know, you don't have those sort of like tips. Some of the tips are more embedded and less embedded. They're all very evenly embedded into exactly where you wanted them. Elvis: Interesting. Speaker D: And then beyond that you can add individual supports as needed. So. Cause you know, you know sometimes you wanna add buttons or bite ramps or whatever it is. Turbos, you know, all kinds of different stuff. So there's so, so much cool stuff happening on the clear appliance world. I mean EMA just signed a deal with Lux Creos. So now we're gonna be able to do like essentially one click Mandy Bl advancement slash snoring appliance like airway devices. Barbara: Oh yeah. Speaker D: Really, really super cool stuff coming where not only can it be your airwide device, but can also act as part of your aligner treatment program which opens the door to allowing that to be covered by medical like by medical insurance. My favorite part of being in this industry is the invention perspective Barbara: I was just gonna say that I was o. Speaker D: There is so much excitement right now in that area. Like it's just. Elvis: It's palpable and it's 3D printed. I don't know if anyone's 3D printing snore guards probably. Speaker D: But I mean it's very, very new. Right. And again like this all fact that Lux Creo has been able to do these clear liner the way they have opens the door to things like clear appliances on airway and mandibular advancement. Right. So I think that honestly my favorite part of being involved in this industry is the invention perspective. Right. Like I think that more than 50% of the doctors we work with have something that they've wanted to create completely custom. And we've been able to do that with them. And that to me is like just by far the most rewarding and interesting part. But that's because I'm not a very good businessman I think. Barbara: So they just keep throwing things at you like you know, could you make this or could you try this or what about this? And you guys just do what. Speaker D: Which naturally turns into products for us. You know what I mean? It a win win. We try to create a relationship to the degree that people are interested. Like we try to create relationships for that reason and work together on promoting different products. But doctors are doctors. They don't have a lot of time to be doing outside work for the most part. But. Direct print aligners have massively more retention than a traditional thermoorm Elvis: Right M. What's the strangest request you got? Speaker D: What's the stranger request? Good. I don't know about the strangests, but one of my favorite implementation of a direct print aligner technology that can only really be done now as where before this just wasn't a thing. So we can obviously we can print on button so we can do like lingual or Buccle buttons and we can do Now what they're doing is so we slice instead of having to cut it later. We within the digital process have two areas where the rubber band is going to slip through the aligner and then it attaches buttons. One on the bucckle, one on the lingual and that in and of itself becomes an intrusive force without the need of the aligner being the. You know, of course you need some retention. But you know that is the beauty of direct print aligners is that we have massively more retention than you get from a traditional thermoorm suck down version. And the accurate really is hugely better by. Yeah by 60% or something like that. Barbara: Wow. Elvis: So being able to do bands through the aligners. I mean I understood that aligners can only push. Now you're pulling. Speaker D: Exactly. That's my point is like biomechanical forces are biomechanical forces. The question is how do you apply them? And being able to 3D print something and go from concept to product in ours is just a massive tool. Right. Like this is something that it's going to change the game. It's going to change the industry on its own without much prodding. Like you almost can't help do these things, you know. Barbara: Wow. Speaker D: Adding inerior vie. Raa. Like we have a product called a transitional retainer where it's essentially a phase one retainer. Right. So we hold your front four and your first molars and we leave your three 4s and fives completely free so that they can erupt naturally. Right. So it's basically just a printed in window over your three 4s and fives so that we're not affecting that movement at all. Right. So this for pediatric cases, this is like requirement on most PGT first, you know, what is it called? First align or I can't remember now what the name is. But aligner is for phase one. And I think that that's by itself just one of those examples of things that can. We can start creating products just per our imagination. And when they get traction, boy they, you know, it's just. Barbara: They take off. Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. Elvis: I imagine the cost her tray is a lot lower than traditional. Speaker D: It is slightly lower. But the reality that mostly comes from the labor short like the labor reduction. Yeah. You know thermoorm suckdowns have been. We've been doing this for a long time and we got a very, very good at it. At least from a larger lab perspective. It's Gonna be years and years before it makes sense to go to direct print aligners because of the production costs. I'm not, you know, I think that again, labor wise, there's no doubt that, you know, anybody that works at Clearerfactory and has to do the polishing aspect or the trimming aspect, I should say trimming andaging hates it. Elvis: Yeah, trimming is nuts. Speaker D: Trimming andgining is the worst. But you know, we have, we sell the lec, right? So you can certainly trim with the laser that requires zero polishing when it's finished. and it's an incredible product and it, you know, it trims in one minute or something like that for any, no matter what scalloped or street. The shape memory that is embedded within these appliances is incredibly accurate But you know, for the direct printerigners, the real reason that I think people will start moving towards this, and this is the crux of our conversation around that I think and should be, is the shape memory that is embedded within these appliances. And the reason they're embedded, by the way, it's nothing fancy, nothing that it's not some gimmick or anything like that. It's really that when you, you know, when you thermal form a plastic or when you create a plastic by injecting it into something, there's no pattern to how those long chain polymers are connected. Right. So when you go past their stress strain, they deform and they can't come back there. There's nothing that makes them want to come back to their shape that they were in. So instead in 3D printing, we're creating it layer by layer and we're connecting long chain monomer chains with oligomers from each, like, from each layer which creates this sort of lattice structure that's almost like the, you know, like the rope ladder on the back of a pirate ship kind of idea. Barbara: Yeah. Speaker D: So when you make this ladder system and then now you have multiple ways that you're curing. So you have cross linked versions of this shape so that when you approach your glass transition temperature from the material after post use, it wants to return back to shape. Right. So you can watch these aligners. You take this aligner that's been deformed, you put it in warm water at 60 degrees Celsius and you just watch it move back into the printed shape that it was in. So from a clear liner perspective, not only are the clear lineers that are 3D printed directly more accurate in terms of, you know, hugging the tooth, the actual tooth shape, not needing to block out nearly as much the undercuts or the Inn interproximal. So you're getting way more contact, surface area contact. But on top of that, so we're more accurate just from a fundamental perspective in terms of how it's produced. But then on top of that, because of our shape memory, when your client every day cleans their aligner in the ultrasonic bath that also heats it to 60 degrees Celsius, it is returning back to its printed shape. So that's crazy. Classically, clear lineerss start at, massive, massive forces at like 16, 600 grams or something like that, right? So it's like, you know, four times stronger than you really need to move teeth. What the studies have shown that are ideal for tooth movement, but the reason that they have to do that is because within three days, these things are down to below the required biomechanical force needed. Right? Barbara: And they still move. Speaker D: Right. And so that's why you're, you're using your tray. It hurts the client for three, four days, and then after that, you're just keeping them in that, in that tray for another week or so, or maybe more, depending on the client, to sort of let those teeth settle in, get that movement for sure, and then move on to the next one. Well, with these direct bur clear aligners, you're not coming off track at all in that process. Like, at least comparatively, it's like unbelievably better. I'm not, I'm not trying to say they'll never be refinement cases, but I think that for multiple reasons, we're gonna be getting rid of this. You know, 60% average on average. 60, 60 to 70% of cases require refinement, which is like, what industry does that make sense in? You know what I mean? Like, where else be acceptable? You know, like 70% of the time this isn't quite gonna work, but you'll get there. You'll get what I mean. So anyway, we're super, super excited about the type of. And, and don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to poo poo anybody's efforts there. I think it was a huge undertaking to get to where we got with thermaoorm clear aligners. But again, we're having. This is a paradigm shift, right, of how things are produced in order to allow for these mechanical properties that we're looking for. And you know, somebody had this aha moment that was gonna. That this is the name. This is the name of the game. This is why we need to attack this. So I think that, that's the really, the reason why labs are going to move towards direct pre aligners is because doctors are going to want direct print of aligners because of the shape memory, perspective, and the increased accuracy, which, by the way, is prevalent. Like, not just in clear lineers. Like, you look at the studies done on crowns like 3D printed temporary or permanent restoration crowns, not to mention implant crowns, which even more so have some promising effects because the flexural module is so much higher than mil, like zirconia, whatever. It's sort of acting like your par periodontal ligaments, so you're giving yourself a little bit of flex. but, you know, the accuracy of a 3D printed crown and the fit that it gets on a tooth is, like, incredibly better. Like, every doctor I've talked to that has put on a 3D printed temporary or a permanent is just blown away at how perfect it fits every single time. Because you're not limited by your toolpath and you're not limited by your head. Rightah y and you canint you can print 150 crowns in 40 minutes or less. You know what I mean? So it's just like, you know, no brainer. Very, very, very interesting territory. Elvis: Right. Barbara: Wow. Elvis: I can see why you're so excited. Barbara: You can hear it. You can hear it in your voice, how psyched you are. Speaker D: Thank you. I appreciate that. Elvis: Mike, that's some exciting stuff. I, appreciate you coming on and educating us about this. Speaker D: Absolutely. Elvis: Clearigners, metal printings, everything. It's fascinating. Barbara: We really y It was really great. Speaker D: We love your podcast. We want to find a legitimate and ideal and mutually useful way to get involved with you guys and with your, lab partners out there. Barbara: Awesome. Well, this is a great start. Speaker D: Yeah. Elvis: The website3dnaental.com. I love it's 3D and DNA. I love that. It's clever. Somebody was smart. Barbara: O yeah. Elvis: Kd. Speaker D: Awesome. Elvis: She's a keeper, Mike. Thank you so much, Mike. We appreciate you. And I'm sure we'll see at all the dental shows. Speaker D: Right? Yeah. we're gonna try to again, keep our overhead a little low, but, we're definitely interested in meeting everybody and being a resource for anybody that we can be. Elvis: Awesome. thank you so much, sir. Speaker D: All right, guys, have a wonderful rest of your day. Appreciate it. We're super open to working with anybody and partnerships moving forward Again, the yep, We'do thanks. Oh, by the way, if anyone wants to getuch with me, reach out. My email is mike3dnaanal.com do and then I can even give my number and we have an 888 number that you can find on the site, but My number is 808-357-1323. And we are, yeah, super open to working with anybody and even partnerships on any kind of, projects moving forward. We're just, we want to be a resource for sure. Elvis: Awesome. Right? Barbara: Thank you. Elvis: Cool. Thanks, Mike. Speaker D: Absolutely'll talk to you later. Bye. Out. Voices from the Bench welcomes Mike Gordon to talk about 3D printing Barbara: Huge thanks to Mike Gordon for coming on and talking about the exciting world of 3D printing. It's amazing how much 3D printing the lab industry is leading in, guys. Between metal printing and how good the resins are getting, it's no wonder Mike's as excited as he is. So go check out3dnadental.com to learn more. Maybe you want to get into clear aligners or even metal printing. It's a great place to start. Thanks, Mike. Elvis: All right, everybody, that's all we have for you. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and we will talk to you. Barbara: Have a great one. Speaker D: Bye. Barbara: Come on, guys. You guys want to come in? Elvis: Who's coming in? Barbara: two dogs, three cats, you know. Elvis: A horse of chicken and a sheep, pretty much. The views and opinions expressed on the Voices from the Bench podcast are those of the guest and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the host or Voices from the Bench llc.