Hi folks of the community. I'm Laura Prosser, the digital marketing manager here for IWA North America, and I would like to invite you to start following us on Instagram. It's your chance to obtain exclusive updates on product announcements, industry news, upcoming educational events, and heartwarming stories about our local team and industry professionals. So let's get social together! Simply start following us on Instagram at. That's Instagram at. We'll see you there. Welcome to voices from the bench, a dental laboratory podcast. Send us an email at Info Voices from the bench and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Greetings and welcome to episode 367 of voices from the bench. Your name is Elvis. My name is Barbara. Still. What? Yes. Happening, Barbara. Still. How are you? Well, you know, you and I. We traveled to the to to Germany. Crazy, crazy 4000? Yeah, 4000 miles. Yeah. So nobody's counting but 4000. So this is the Sunday after. And I actually am just starting to feel normal, so I'm good. What a trip. You know what I'm saying? I mean, crazy. Unbelievable. I know we talked a little bit about it last week, but we're still in the thick of it. Yeah. Now that we're back. What has it been a week about? Yeah. Every day I was a zombie. Literally, literally. You got hit with that time zone difference a little harder than I did. Was it hard coming back or. I came back, I stayed up the whole plane ride. And that next day, I woke up at 630 and cleaned out every closet in my house throughout all kinds of. It was like I was on some sort of adrenaline kick. I got so much done, I felt amazing. And then the next day was Monday and I thought I might just die. You should have used some of that energy at work. No. Yeah. So. But you know what? I feel better. It was a wonderful trip. Super opportunity. Thank you. XO, cat I can't. Absolutely. So no complaints from this girl? Yeah. So I'm starting to go through all the recordings slowly. So good. Not in a huge hurry, but I'm going through them. But you know what struck me is how many different countries we talk to go through. It's crazy. I haven't even gone through all of them. And already, I mean, of course, Germany. Of course. We're in Germany. Yep. People from the US, Canada, UK. Okay, those are expected. Yeah, but then we talked to Egypt. Iraq. Ireland. Scotland. Colombia. Italy. Nuts. Yeah. Poland. Yes. It's so interesting that so many countries come to Germany for this meeting. I mean, I thought Chicago was popular, but. Wow. Yeah. Can't wait to get all these things out. But it's gonna be a while. Everybody hold off their the best conversations ever. Uh, honestly, there was 25 of them, and I was just so into it. And I know you were. And yeah, I just. Man, I just feel like we just kicked, and so did everybody. We did a great job. Yep. Yeah. Thank you. Everyone that came and saw us and sat down with us and chatted with us. And I'm surprised my voice held up. Yeah, it did though. Really shocked. Yeah. So this week, what's happening? We're bringing three more conversations that I got while at the. I have a grand ballroom at LMT lab de Chicago 2025. Isn't that crazy? We're talking about Chicago still, and we just got back from Germany. Jeez. It's a crazy ride. Yeah, but you know what's funny is after going to IDs and having so many people saying that they would love to go to Labor Day Chicago, it's crazy to think that our show in Chicago is someone's dream. Just like it was our dream to go to Idph. Yeah, that is actually. Is that crazy? Yes. Wow. Chicago to me is a three hour drive. But it's someone's dream, you know? Yeah. But anyhow, one of the guilty pleasures we have of doing the podcast is meeting people that we only knew online. And this is the case as we get to know Christopher Hernandez. I know him as denture king on Instagram, but luckily at the show I learn all about him going to dental technician school in Mexico, or finding his way to a sleep apnea device lab and ending up at his current role doing all on XS at Clear Choice. Wow. Then we have an old guest who comes back on to update us on a pretty exciting company that he started. Greg Everett has a knack of getting things working again. He saw a need for a reliable resource to keep the rolling mills running even longer. That's pretty smart. You started Denton. Great name, where they can completely rebuild any role in mill to factory newness. And the great part is that he has the full support of rolling, which is awesome. So if you or anybody you know has a role in mill in your lab and most everybody does, you will want to check out this conversation, I'm sure. Night, Scott. Oh, yeah. Quite a few. Rolling mill. Yeah. Yeah. It's nuts. Every lab I go to and I mentioned this in this car. There's always more than one roll in every lab. Yep. It's crazy. And then we wrap up the episode with the conversation about keeping your. I have a car mills running with. I own Joe Braxton. Joe talks about his start into automotive, finding his way into a milling center, and then installing training and servicing all the program mills, and of course, Barb and the fan favorites M7. And then he also talks about Iowa class new milling center for their current customers. Yeah, I heard about that too. That's awesome. So join us as we chat with Christopher Hernandez, Greg Everett and Joe Braxton. Are you a dental lab in need of more talent to improve your bottom line and keep production on schedule? Are you a dental tech with great skills but feel you're being limited at your current lab? Well, the answer is here. Hi, I'm Mark from Win Win Go and this is precisely why win Win go was created. The dental lab and dental tech community needed a place where labs and technicians can meet, talk about their needs, and connect in ways that foster a win win outcome. As a tech, if you're ready to make a change, thinking about moving in the next year or just curious what's out there, sign up today. It's totally free. As a lab, you might be feeling the frustration of paying the big employment site so much and getting so few tech candidates. We understand they don't much care about our industry. Win win. Go. Com is simply the best place for lab techs and lab owners to actively engage in creating their ideal future. Win win. Go com how dental techs find Paradise. Voices from the bench. The interview. I'm like, I've known her for three years. I was like, well, just take a picture, send it to her. That's nice. She's like, dude, thank you. Because I didn't take any pictures. I'm terrible at it. Every year I think to myself, I want to buy, like a photo thing. I could hit a button and take a picture from over. I get it. My social media sucks at that guy because I don't even think about it. Yeah. And even now, I don't even want to do it. You don't need it. Honestly, dude, I mean, your guys's podcast is well recognized around the industry. It's like, do you all need to suck up? You're on top. So this is awesome. This is a good guy that I've. I mean, you say you're friends, but you're more just like social media friends, but Christopher Hernandez. Yeah, I got it. Sweet. I mean, whatever you're doing on social media, and I'm a big fan of people just going outside the box. Yeah. Have fun dude. Yeah, that's what it's all about. Have fun. I love just you're just craziness. Middle of the day. I'm gonna just start rambling and and just like. Like you're like, you're recording your thoughts and sharing it with the rest of us all the time, man. There's a lot of things that are going in my head that I used to not speak up. Yeah. And all of a sudden it's like, well, why not? Yeah. You hit that age, you're like, yeah, whatever I call Chris or Christopher. Chris. Chris. All right. Chris. So give me the story. How did you get into this mess? It's been crazy. Dude, I mean, my uncle's a dentist down in Mexico. Okay. Um, he's my godfather. Okay. And, um, basically always took me in the clinic and showed me what he did. I was raised in Mexico. Uh, yeah, for the most part. Okay. Were you born in Mexico? No, I was born in the U.S.. I was born in California. Okay. Things with just how cheap it is to live over there and everything. Parents took me when I was, like, 3 or 4 years old. Yeah. Grew up. Up there. And then when moved to the California back because of, um, how long the border lines were and all that. Yeah. But I never had a really of a background in dental. I wanted to do criminology. Criminology? Yeah. And then it got to be like CSI. I do. Okay. Yeah. I mean, dude, we're all weird. We we like all those forensic files and stuff like that. Yeah. And, um, I still watch all of that, but of course, it it got to the point that it got to political for me, and. I thought about becoming a dentist down in, um, because I could have gotten the full scholarship down in Wabash, which is, uh, the university in Baja California, down in Mexico and on the border state. Oh, okay. And I was like, I had such. You had a full run. I could have gone in because I'm born in the U.S., and they wanted to get more foreign exchange students. Oh, so they wanted a they wanted to get into that market. And my mom ruined that for me. I love my mom. Okay. She's great. She's put a lot on her. Yeah, she's she's a great supporter in me and and doing what I've been doing. I mean, she she funded a lot of it. Yeah. When I was younger. But she was that patient with dentists that it was like, this crown doesn't look right. This crown does this. And I was like, I would go to her appointments. I'm sitting there. I could hear her complain. I'm like, I don't want to be on that receiving end. I was like, and then I talked to my uncle. My uncle's been doing this for 30 years. Yeah. And he's like, well, why don't you go to the school down to where I went to down in Tijuana. I was like, okay, what's it called? And I'm a name dropping real quick. I'm sure they're not even listening to this, but it's Instituto Americano. Instituto Dental Americano. So basically, it's a two year program down in Tijuana, Mexico. They're certified by the by kind of like a technical school. Okay. Like the same things that you do over here. Yeah. And went down there. Did it for two years. And man, I fell in love with it. It was just dental technology. Just straight up dental. So there is a lab school in Tijuana? Yeah. Are there a lot of lab schools in Mexico? I know of three. Three, and they're spread out around the country. Um, but again, a lot of this, a lot of the techs down there are people that just random people that apply. And they basically what we do here in the US, like nobody really knows. And yeah, you just get trained up. They fall in love with it and they go deeper, deeper, deeper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when two year school. Two year school. Yeah. And they show everything. Yeah. Fixed, removable or fixed removable implants. I mean, all the implants was integrated a year before I started. So it was still kind of it was still kind of new. It was the second, uh, second class of the year 2015. So digital probably not at school. No digital. So everything that I came up with was all analog. Yeah. And techniques that you're talking people that were doing that are retiring now. Sure. Yeah. So it's literally like you see me doing it and it's like, how do you know how to do that? Yeah. So it's kind of I'm appreciative because of that. Yeah. Because I can still fall into those old techniques and be able to the fundamentals, man. Exactly. It's so crazy how life just takes you in different directions. It was like I went to that school. Didn't think anything of it. Fell in love with the industry. Yeah, I started falling following. The first person that I followed in this industry was, um. One of them was Janelle. Yeah. The other person. Um. Mackenzie. Mackenzie. Sure. And it was, like, supposed to be here today, and I haven't seen it. Oh, well, she'll show up. Yeah. I hope. Uh, with her owning her own lab, I'm sure she is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, it was. Those were one of the first two I started following. Yeah. And when I first came to Lab Day three years ago. I just seen your first lab day was three years ago. I came out here, dude, and I was just starstruck, and it was amazing. I started talking to him. So down to earth. Yeah. And it's like, yes, everybody. And that's what I tell people. When my new tech started, like, I want to go to lab, they do it. Yeah. He's like, you're going to be Star Trek the first year. Go to the second year and you're going to see that all these people are so down to earth, and they're willing to share what they know. Yeah. And that's basically what I try to do now with new people that are getting into the labs and or new people that that follow me on Instagram. And I'm like, look, I'm always going to try to help you guys. If I can't answer your question, I'll direct you to somebody that I know will help you. A lot of people with a lot of answers, and it's crazy how nowadays the industry has changed so much. I know a lot of the old school techs that showed me how to do this were mean, and they were just like they didn't want to share their training. There was a there was a defining line between the old techs not sharing. Everyone talks about and used to share. Now everybody over shares. Yeah. Yeah. And and it's still good. I mean, I appreciate all of them because whatever little things I was able to pick out of them I still use nowadays. Yeah. And the training that I got from them. Molded me to what I'm when I am 100%. Yeah. So you got to take the take it with a grain of salt. The way you were able to do with all that. But it's just been very grateful in the industry. I mean, meeting you online and just chit chatting back and forth on your guys's post and memes. What about you got me on that Sunday chorus? Yeah. I got a lot of people on that. But yeah, I did ten years a week ago doing this. Really? Yeah. Okay. So you graduate in Tijuana. Graduated in 2007. You're not in Tijuana anymore? No. What happened? Uh, family. Family moved me out to Saint Louis. Saint Louis. Saint Louis, Missouri. Christine. Yeah, it it. So I graduated in 2017. I got offered a job as a sleep apnea tech down in la mesa, California for Apex Dental sleep lab. Oh, wow. Great company. How the hell did they find you? One. Other techs. Their manager went to school. Where I went to school. Oh, and he was shopping at Costco or Sam's or something like that. Saw a professor and he goes, hey, do you know anybody that can work in the US that's willing to, like, come aboard and like, well, I only know one guy. Nice name. Dropped me and it worked perfect. Awesome. So you did sleep devices? I did sleep apnea for six years. Oh, wow. That's a lot of experience. Yeah, I did sleep apnea for apex. They taught me everything I knew from from sleep apnea. And obviously living in California can get a bit expensive. Sure. We had the opportunity at the time with my wife to move out to Saint Louis with her family, and I got hired by Dyna Flex, which is another good company for orthodontics and sleep apnea. Really? Um, they're based out of, um, Lake Saint Louis. Okay. Did work with them for four years. Um, became supervisor there. I really know your sleep apnea devices. I love it, dude. Really? I, I actually do enjoy. I don't know much about it. It's a different monster. It is. It's scary to me because you're like protrusion jaws. And you're dealing with people's, like, mental health, and. Yeah, you're. I mean, you know, um, Leah from Star Wars. Yeah. She passed away from sleep apnea. Shut up. Yeah. They related. A lot of people pass away from sleep apnea, but they related to a heart disease. Because essentially that it goes hand in hand. Yeah. So I mean, it's the silent killer, believe it or not. Carrie fisher. Let's talk. Fisher. Okay. Yeah. Carrie fisher. Yeah. But, yeah, I know that it's it's insane. And that's why. I mean, you see a lot of people with CPR and stuff like that, but, sure, a lot of people get claustrophobic with having a machine just stuck in your face, but you don't if you don't need it. Why you go through all that? And I think insurance is different between the two devices. And, I mean, we could get into all that. Yeah. You can talk about it for days. I mean, you did all those analog though, right? Analog. And we were I, I believe Diana started integrating a lot of the digital. Yeah. And they were milling a lot of their, uh, sleep apnea appliances. And till this day, they still do. There's still one of the top competitors in doing that. But, yeah, I, I just felt like I ran my course there. I in school, they always told me to focus on Crown and Bridge. Yeah. They're like, hey, this is where the money's at. This is real money. Yeah, yeah. And I just so not. Didn't like it. Yeah. I always fell in love with renewables, and they're like, you're not going to make any money doing dentures. I'm like, it's what I like to do. How could somebody say that? I mean, you're talking eight years ago. Yeah. Nine years ago maybe. So it's it's crazy how it's all turned around. So where'd you go after the sleep apnea? So from, uh, Dyna Flex, I applied at summit. Summit? Oh, yeah. Dental damage. And then they turned into Summit Horizon. Yep. I worked there for two years, and then, um. I told them when I got hired, I was like, I haven't done dentures since I was in school. Like, don't worry, kid. Like, well, we'll. Yeah, we'll go ahead and and and see how you do, and we'll work with you and show you a little bit here. And little by little, I mean it got to the point that I at one point I was running that renewable department. Yeah. And then, um, it was good. It was great. Just doing dentures. Just doing dentures, partials. Flexible. Doing everything from. Start to finish. Yeah. Yeah. From start to finish. Nice. And then, um, very grateful for summit because they were the ones that that were like, hey, you should do a social media page. Really? Yeah, they were encouraging you of it. The operations manager, Amy Sykes, I know her. Yeah. She's the one that's like, you should do a social media page. You're funny. You. You're up there. Do it. That's great. I was like, okay, well, what's going to be my name? And it's just like, oh, come up with something. I'm like, what about Poppy? She goes, no, we don't want to call you Poppy. Poppy. Yeah. Is that like a like daddy? Daddy? Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay. Yeah. You don't want to go there? No. And she goes, no, no, no, let's not do it. Just like, what about King? I was like, look, Denture King, she's like, yeah, denture king and stuck. Is that what it is? I don't, you know, you follow people and you just kind of forget what they're called. Yeah. Yeah. And it stuck. And I was like, okay. So when did that started? How long ago? 2022 2022? So not that long ago. Not that long ago. And what you just initially just started posting work. Posting the work that I was doing there. Um, started name dropping like closer. Yeah. A majority of the products that we used were closer to modern materials and stuff like that. Yeah, they do some good removeable thing. Uh, TCS yeah, they are uh, TCS was another one that you did Flexibles to flexibles like Flexibles. Yes and no. Yeah. I mean it's it's HTC's is a great product. It is. Yeah. It's just so hands on. It's and it's hard to finish technique sensitive. It's so technique sensitive that you have to be able to have the time to do it. Yeah. Um, it got to the point that we had a lot of offices that were asking for flexibles, and it got to the point that I was asking three at a time. Mhm. I remember, um, some of the texts that were there was like, there's no way that that's going to come out. Are you not supposed to flash three at a time. It's not recommended. Okay. It's not recommended because when you do, when you do even two at a time, that depending on how you sprue your flask, it may not screw correctly. So you may get a miss a missed shot. So instead of missed shotting just one, you're missed shot in three or 3 or 3. Oh yeah I see what you're saying. So I, I mean I got to the point that I got pretty. It's hard to say. You can. You can mute it. I know we talked about it. You get pretty ballsy and doing this and it's kind of like, okay, well, we'll figure out the way I messaged my uncle that's been doing it for 30 years. It's like, hey, guy, do you think I can do that? How should I do it? Yeah. He goes, keep the heat, keep the flask warm, keep it hot. Yeah, yeah. And then shoot it. I have a place where it gets cold. Yeah, exactly. That kind of makes sense. Yeah. Every time came out. So are you still there at that lab? No, I, I parted ways back in, uh, last year in around July and July, and then, um, I got a pretty sweet deal working for Clear Choice. Oh, yeah. Is that where you're at now? That's where I'm at right now. Yeah, and talk about that. I mean, it's kind of interesting because I've never really done all on Zts. Yeah. So I got offered a manager role with them out of their new location in Illinois. They hired a tech that's never done all on X as a manager. They liked the experience. And essentially I'm like the years of experience were there and they have a training facility. They're like, we'll train you. Yeah. It's like, okay, I mean, I can do everything else. Yeah. It's like, what's a one more technique in there? To me this might be controversial, but I think it's easier. It is, I kid you not. I mean, it's it's like you got some implants in there. You get, you hit those. You don't have to worry about borders. No. And and the thing is, when I went to to train down in, in Colorado, I was a bit nervous. I mean, I get nervous, I get anxious, I was gagging in the hotel. I was very nervous because it's something that I've never done. And I got trained by William Lawson, a great guy, very patient. And he's like, don't worry. Like, we'll show you how to do this. Sure enough, dude, I was like, Holy crap. Like, this is really easy. I'm like, wow, I didn't think it was going to be this. Yeah. And sure enough, we did the training. We did it. Um, kind of like not I can't say it's old school because it's still a technique that's being used today, but it was more of a more complete analog version of it. Yeah. Him and, uh, Scott Adams, kind of. Scott Adams came up with that technique. Yeah. And he came over with us, talked to me and the other guy that was training there and very friendly guy. It was just. It was a good experience. Really good experience. Very grateful. With this company. Yeah. And once I got into my center working for a prostate, which, again, I have never done in the past before. So it was a different monster. Yeah, man. They're picky. Yes. So it's kind of like you go from working. Working with general dentists. 1015 dents that you would have now working with somebody that has done lab work, has done the time and the bench as well. If Barbara's here, she'd go. Oh. I mean, man, they're good to pick their brains. They're very smart, very smart, but they're hard to work. They're hard to work for for for reasons that are good. Yes. But still, you know, because it's again, like they did the time in the bench. Yeah. So they're like okay. Like I wouldn't say challenge. It's just a different set of opinions. Sure. So at the end of the day he's a doctor. Yeah. So you're going to do what he wants to do. You'll give your $0.02. If he doesn't want to do it that's fine. Yeah. We'll do what you want to do. So talk about what you do at Clear Choice. I mean so right now we I do chair side not quote unquote chair side conversions. Yeah. Um, patient comes in, you get the records, you make dentures. Yeah. So patient the patient comes in for the for precedence exam. Yep. Uh, they'll take impressions or scans. Yeah. They'll go ahead and do the treatment plan once he gets that done. Patient agrees with it. Yep. If they have to do extractions, they'll do extractions. If the patient's dental is then they'll go ahead and do bite rooms to see if everything was going. So you do make dentures for everybody first. No. Okay. So well yes and no. So essentially what we'll do is they'll take those impressions and we'll go ahead straight to designing their surgery teeth okay. So once they do those surgery teeth they go ahead and then they do um the surgery they do extractions. They do the for implants for the all on X. Yep. We have surgery teeth ready to go, and we'll load those that we use sprint ray and we sprint race on Onyx. Yeah. Onyx stuff too. Yeah, and good stuff. Very good. How are you scanning the placement of the implants? How are you getting those records? Are they doing photogrammetry? No, they're doing, um. Uh, Neil. Convert. So it's kind of similar to, uh, the smart denture conversions. Oh, really? Yeah. So, well, essentially Providence is doing majority of the work in this case. So they're you're picking it up doctors picking it up chair side and then you're grinding it out, grinding them in and making them look pretty. Really. So that's why I that's why I say I'm like, wow. I feel like I've been doing a lot more work and and removals along the way. And I thought this was going to be like, oh my God, this is like all on fours. This is going to be tough. And I was like, oh, wow, this is actually pretty, pretty easy. How fast can you do a conversion? 35 minutes, 45 minutes I love it how you had that number. Just like, boom, the reason why I tell you why I tell you what, it's a pretty funny story. So they give us around an hour and 15 minutes to do a double conversion. Yeah, I was talking to my GM. I'm like, man, I wish I could have a TV in my lab. Like, I like to, like, play music or like, be just something playing in the background. Yeah. And he's just, he's we're trying to see how, how efficient we can become. So we're, we're timing and see, um, where we can do better and all that. And he looks at me, he goes, you do a double conversion in 45 minutes, I'll put a TV on there. I'm like, are you sure? He goes, you got to do it consistently. I'm like, okay. Sure enough. So 45 minutes is a double. It's a double. Oh, you kick my butt. And it was like okay. And again, I'm relying a lot on the doctor to do to make a good right to do a good pickup. Sometimes if it's not a good pickup, I'll take an hour. You don't get in there to help with the pickup or anything. No, no, it's all done. He just shows up with this thing? Yeah, the system comes in. It's all ready to go. He goes. All right. It's been disinfected, laid up there, disinfect for another ten minutes, and then as soon as those ten minutes are up, I'm like, hey, I just started working on the teeth. You can start timing me. Nice. Nice. Yeah. Been very grateful with the experience. I'm loving it. How many do you do? Do you do a lot? Uh, since it's a new a new, uh, location? Yeah. We have one surgery day a week. Okay. Uh, so it just depends on on what type we're doing with the patients. We'll do crowns at times. Um, was essentially, they do a lot of implanting crowns, so I don't get to touch those because we we outsource. You only do surgery for one day a week. What do you do the rest of the time? Just set up everything else. Oh, so we we do take the prostate exam patients and we get everything ready. The only thing is, since we are oral surgeons, only available once a week, then we're like, okay, well, let's schedule a double cover like this. Patient's having a double conversion and then we have a single conversion. Then we'll. Both patients one day. That's all. Busy day for you. Yeah. So we're there. I think we started at when? Surgery. They they have to be there at five in the morning. In the morning to get everything prepped. Patient comes in at 630, preps them, and they start, like around 645, 7 a.m.. You know, even if I needed that service and someone told me it'd be there at 5 a.m., I'd probably talk me out of it. Well, not the patient. Patient's not having to be. Oh, okay. No, no no, no. Patient walks in at 645, 630. Okay, that's a little bit better. Yeah, not all of us. We have to get there at that time to get everything ready. Yeah, but. Yeah. Dude, it's it's a nice experience. Very nice. Uh, my location is trying to integrate photogrammetry. Yep. So we're trying to see the best efficient. We're looking at financing to to see if it's going to be worth it for us. And I mean, with it being clear trees and how many all on axes we're cranking now. Yeah. It may look like so that at that point you'll be designing it and then printing that temporary. Have you done those? Not yet. No. No. Can you design? I can design. Okay. Yeah. You can talk about where you learn designing. I learned at summit. Okay. So it was it was kind of kind of a weird positioning because. I wanted to learn how to do design. We came to the lab. We bought printers. We bought that, the Sega printers. And I wanted to learn design. Amy wanted me to learn how to design. And it was such a hassle because a lot of doctors do not want to roll over, do digital some. I mean, some of the old doctors are yeah, you're always going to have a handful. So it's like we still had to do a lot of analog work, and then I still needed to put time aside to train for it. Yeah. And I just wasn't able to. It's hard it's hard to get other work to do. Exactly. Or if I, if I started designing something and three shape would crash or something like that or I did something wrong. Yeah, I'm trying to troubleshoot it. I look up, it's three hours passed and all everything else is pushed back. Yeah. So I'm like, okay, like I have to prioritize this. Sure. It's always hard. Yeah. And then, um, they hired Mandy Arena. Arena last year. Yeah. A little past lab day. She went in and she started teaching us a little bit more about designing in three shape. Nice. So she took control of that and started showing us how to design. Little by little, I got to the point that it got too busy for both of us. Me on the analog and my my other techs in the analog and her in the digital room that we were just like Amy. And everybody came a point and we're like, hey, we just need your help. And just doing design work. Yeah, she ended up doing the design work. Nice. So it was good. It was a good hand in hand. I'm very grateful to be able to learn a little bit more about her. I mean, again, I met her here in lab Day. We. She works in Saint Louis. I didn't really get to work with her much. Sure. Um, I was worked with her for around eight months or so and got to pick her brain a good amount. And it was. It was nice. Nice? Yeah. That's all what we do. I mean, we just pick each other's brains. Exactly. That's so good. Yeah. Yeah, it was great. And from there, it just. I got that really good offer from Clear Choice, and I was just like, I couldn't pass it. I have not really heard bad things from the technicians I know working at Clear Choice. I know they kind of have, like, a stigma about them, about, yeah, they just pump them out and they do or, you know, whatever. Yeah, but you learn so much and you get to do it so often. Yeah. It just depends also on the, on the, on your post. Sure. I mean, my boss, I love him. He's he's a good guy. Stops to teach. Yeah. Stops to teach. Or if I, if I hit a like a there's a difficult case and I'm having like I'm on a roadblock. He'll jump in. He's like what's going on? He's like, okay, well let's try this or let's do this. And then it will help me out and very grateful. Yeah, he does not like three, but I'll tell you that he does not like it. He's like, I want an XO cat. I was like. Will you buy it for me? Yes. He said. Does he have to use three shape with that company or does it up to him? For now, I think it's mainly three shape. I think they're going to be rolling out. That'd be nice. Yeah, but for the most part, for for the meantime, it is three shades. Yeah. Yeah. Well, awesome. Chris. Yeah. What a great story. Man, I had no idea. Appreciate it man. And again, I mean, there's a lot of text that don't know what a lot of people actually that don't know what they want to do. They end up stumbling into this career. And that's how I fell into it accidentally. So yeah, you just fall into. Yeah. You fall in love with it. Yeah. And they just couldn't imagine doing anything else. Look at you doing a podcast. I work at it all day, and then at night I deal with this. Yeah, it never ends. It never, never ends, man. Awesome, man. So, denture king on Instagram. Denture king. Denture king C.H. denture. Yeah. Nice. Love it. Man. I hope to see you. Have a good one. Thank you too. And you've got, like, one of the best spots in the whole place, right? It's not bad. Yeah, I can eyeball everybody and. Yeah, that's awesome man. Yeah, yeah. We welcome back to the podcast. Man, this has been a weekend of, uh, reunions. Almost. We've had a lot of past guests come back, some of them in different roles, some of them in the same roles. But thanks for sitting down. Labor day Chicago 2025. Of course. And I have a blast. Booth, thank you so much. I have a car. Yeah. Greg Everett. How are you, sir? I'm doing awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, uh. It's. Going. Awesome. How's it been? Yeah, it's been a great show. Yeah. So you stopped me in the hall? Not yesterday. Yeah. Dave, run together. Down in. Down in the tunnels. It was the tunnels. I run into so many people in the tunnels. It's so weird. Yeah. You're doing something interesting that it's kind of exciting. So what? What are you. What are you up to these days? Yeah, well, you know, last time I was on the podcast, it was, uh, I was at Sierra, you know, the Byrds. Yeah, the high end, high performance, uh, tooling. We learned so much about birds on that episode. Yeah, yeah, more than I probably needed to know. But anyhow, that's kind of my M.O.. I'll tend to. I'll tend to overshare on the tech stuff. Yeah, that's all good. Shut me down if I get to know. I love the nerdy talk, man. So, uh, smash forward a few years, and, uh, I've, uh, I started my own company. Nice. Out of Southern California. Okay. And, uh, taking a specialty in, uh, Roland machines. Yeah. Um, and so, uh, you know, there's a there's an awful lot of labs out there with rolling machines. There's a lot of rollings out there. Yeah. And oftentimes the difficulty is, is, uh, you know, they've been out of warranty for a while, and, uh, you know, it gets harder and harder to get service for, uh, for older technology. And, you know, as a lab owner, you want to keep things running and keep your investment, you know, producing for you. Hey, man, the longer that thing runs, the more what is the ROI you get out of it? Oh, man, I have heard the word ROI like 90 times this, uh, weekend. It's one of those buzzwords. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, you know, talking about ROI and it's always generally best to keep something running instead of replacing it, you know? And so, uh, I identified that as a niche. And, uh, we've specialized in, in creating a repeatable process where we take in machines and rebuild them with, uh, all new parts and, uh, ship them back to the lab, and, and we put them back into production. All right, so let's just break it down easy. Yeah. Someone's got a rolling mill. They've had it for eight years. Obviously, the warranty is out. Yeah. And if. Someone pays for an extended warranty that's probably even still out. I don't know how that can max it out to five. Five. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We all one of these things the last longer than five years, right? Absolutely. After those five years, why am I not going back to Roland to do this? Rehash rebuilding? Do they even do that, or were they just trying to sell me a new one? I think it's sell you a new one. Yeah, there's definitely merit to that idea. Sure. Uh, because there's always updates to technology and, you know, they're they're constantly, you know, coming out with the new hotness. Yeah. But, you know, I my background is in the lab, and I spent ten years working as a technician. And, you know, I understand that perspective. And, you know, it is always cool to have new shiny stuff. But at the end of the day, we need that machine to just make us a part that we can sell and, you know, maximize the effectiveness of the dollars we're putting into our capital investment. And so for a lot of labs, a rebuild is actually a better a better opportunity. And especially if you've already got the equipment, it's already depreciated. And, you know, for a fraction of the cost, uh, you can you can get another life cycle out of it. It's pretty crazy. So this is, by the way, I got to thank you for the opportunity to come sit here. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. You know it. It's a small business, and I wanted to hear about it as soon as you stopped me in the hall. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, so far, completely just grown organic word of mouth. Yeah. Because a lot of people talk and share, and we're offering a good service. And, uh, and people tend to tend to be pretty happy with it. So. So yeah, there's always the opportunity to, to buy new stuff. I mean, you walk around the show, there's so much well, that's all they want to do. Shiny stuff that you can buy. I try not even to look them in the eye because they'll try to sell me something. But I mean, do people send you mills that don't work, or do they send you mills that. Just getting a little old and let's see if we can sew it. All I know about is a spindle. Yeah, yeah, maybe a few other parts, but that must be the big thing that people replace. I mean, yeah, well, one of the awesome things about Roland's is that you can replace the spindle yourself. See? Yeah, I've heard that. Yeah, yeah. And so other equipment, you got to have a field guy come out and it's a, you know, $6,000 expense. Yeah. And half the things on the floor just to change the most changeable part. It's a bit scary. Um, to answer your question, it, uh, it doesn't matter. It can be literally a paperweight, and we can bring it back to life. Like, uh, we've brought machines that were in a labs basement or closet for two years back to life and put them back in like that. Weren't used. They just stopped working. Or they were making, like, terrible lines or breaking units or, you know, just so much breakage because they're worn or broken in some way that the lab was like, you know, we paid money for this. We're not throwing it away. So it just gets stuck in the in the in the boneyard in the basement. You do mostly Rollins, only Rollins. You know, my my philosophy is to be really good at one thing. Yeah. And so we have fully committed to Roland. Okay. And all their models and everything. Uh, if it's got a Roland, uh, placard on it, we can fix it. Nice. And that ranges all the way down to the super early, you know? DW 50s. Yeah. Which, believe it or not, some of those are still running in there. They're like 12, you know, 13 years old. Yeah. So we we do service those all the way up to new flagship stuff. You know, warranty work. Where do you get the parts from? Roland. So yeah, Roland in my company, Denton, which I probably should probably say if I was a good promoter, I should say the name of my company. Denton. D e n t e o n. You got it. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, Denton com if, uh, if you want to check it out. Perfect. And which, by the way, that name means nothing. It's not a real word. Well, yeah, I was able to get all my social and a and a URL, and, uh, it was available. We're attributing meaning to the word. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Make make the word mean something? Yeah, yeah. So the only way that you can really start a business like this is to have a solid relationship with the with the OEM. Yeah. And so, uh, we're very, very friendly with Roland. They totally support this. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Yeah, yeah. And which, by the way, like kudos for, for them as a company. Yeah. Because you would think they'd be like, no, I want to sell new ones. Yeah. Let them die. Let them die, you know. Right. Well, you know, the you know, of course I think that's probably true. But they they understand that it's important to support their, their loyal customers. Yeah. And really like, you walk into a lab that, you know. Oh we got our first roll in and then we bought another one. Another one. Yeah. And there's never one roll in. Oh, yeah. Exactly. Have you ever. It's pretty rare to walk into one with just. Yeah. And so the so there's an ecosystem that's there. Uh, and and, uh, it's, it's they've done a great job of designing that. It's kind of, it's kind of iPhone esque, you know, because it's it's the brand of machine that you can buy and know that it works. Plug and play. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It's I would say I would challenge. Other machines to to deliver on unboxing it and milling a unit within an hour. Oh, the rest of it. And you can do that. Like that's that is not a joke. There's no, you know, exaggeration there. Yeah. You can plug it in, calibrate it, throw a disc in it and some tools and start running. Yeah. But you can replace everything that's in it if it's. Yeah. Excuse me. I know nothing about this stuff, but the motherboard goes out, the power supply, the fans. Yeah, yeah. Air, the water with those wet mills, everything is serviceable. Yeah. Again, I'll give kudos again to Roland because they've got a a very robust, um, service infrastructure that's back end that like the, the end user doesn't see this stuff but the dealers do. And so it's kind of like a car mechanic. You know, if I'm working on a Ford, I can log in and look at the exploded views of the, of the engine and be like, you know, this is the part that I want. Yeah, yeah, grab the part number and I can order it directly from them, you know, as a, as a dealer and it'll ship. And, you know, we keep inventory of all the, you know, common stock of the big stuff. Yeah. And you know, sometimes it'll be something obscure and we'll have to work with them to, to source it. But we've never had an issue sourcing apart. Have you ever had a mill unfixable. You know, there have been some that have been close. Really? Yeah. But, um, I, I take it as a personal challenge. Yeah. I bet. And, uh, we actually haven't found a mil yet that beat us. Oh, yeah. Um, I challenge all of our listeners out there. Yeah. Okay, if there's anybody out there who's got a broken rolling mill that is unfixable. Send it to us. There you go. You think you'll be able to get it going? Yeah. Well, there's, uh. How do you figure out why it doesn't work if it doesn't work? So we we start with terms. So. Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll try to I'll try to keep it layman's. So the most common thing that happens is, uh, a customer will find our website or, or most times it's a referral. It's word of mouth. Yeah. And, uh, like, hey, you know, we're getting million lines or it's chipping all the margins or what have you. I've tried calibrating. Yeah, we tried calibrating it. We've done everything we can. It's still just misbehaving, right? Yeah, yeah. And so we'll start with, you know, getting a serial number. We'll look up service history and, and we can actually remote in and see like the status of the machine and what, what errors it might have. Really? Oh yeah. Rolling allows you to do that. That's cool. Yeah. And in fact, if you read your terms of service when you, uh, install the software. Yeah. Which nobody does. No. Nobody does. There's a. Yeah. Your dealer can see the see the errors in the state, like all the dealers have that access. And so so we'll start with, you know, doing a bit of a troubleshooting process and understand what the current state of the machine is. And you know, at this point we've seen so many we have over 600 closed tickets. Oh, really? Yeah. You've had 600 mills come to you. So? So close. Ticket. What I mean is, it ranges from somebody calling in, and we help them remotely. Oh, that ticket's closed. Oh. Like two. Have you tried plugging it in? That's the ticket. Well, that's that's. Yeah. Well, usually they'll they'll call us at that one. But it does happen. Yeah. And so on. One end of the spectrum it's that. And then on the other end of the spectrum it's we'll do a full rebuild process. Every screw part. Yeah. Bolt rebuild wise there's been a lot. I mean, it's, uh, it's been enough to sustain a company. Do you do most of the rebuilding? You know, um, luckily now because, like, the problem with any business and lab owners certainly understand this is finding good help. Yeah. And, uh, and so I've been very lucky in finding two guys that are that are now my full, full time employees. Yeah. Uh, and so it's the three of us, and we, uh, we specialize in deep in depot work. So what does that mean? Meaning that we're going to much prefer to have the machine here in our shop, in a controlled environment, to going out on site and going. Yeah. So you don't go out to fix things. We do. We do. But we try to do everything we can to not do that. Yeah. Because it is expensive. Air travel is ridiculous. Yeah. Um, it's a mess. Anybody at the show understands that? Yeah. It's. Let's try to do it. Remote. And then if, uh, if it isn't your only mill, it makes economic sense to ship it. Yeah. Then the next question is like, hey, do you have the box? That's what I was just about to ask. Yeah. Those mills come in some hefty shipping containers. Yeah. If you don't keep them. Yep. You ain't going to be able to go find that box at Home Depot or something. I mean, so that's probably the biggest barrier for for what we're doing, uh, in a lab. Do you ship them an empty box? No. We're we're creative. We're scrappy. About 70% of machine owners did not keep the box. Oh, yeah. Who's got the space? Who's got the space? Although, man, if you buy a piece of equipment, you should figure out how to keep the box. Yeah, but a lot of labs are in some small areas, and I get it. Yep, yep. Oh, yeah. I've worked on a machine, like, literally on the floor in a coat closet. Like, really? Yeah, it ranges for sure. And so you line is is an amazing company. Yep. And so you can buy a fully enclosed wooden crate that will fit the machine in it. Yeah. They're a couple hundred bucks. Oh. That's it. Yep. Not too bad. And what you get is you get an empty wood box. Yeah. So then you have to figure out how to hold the machine in the box. Yeah. And so where we came in is we developed packing peanuts. Oh, no no no no. You don't. You want to be very careful. It has to be, like, super secure. Yeah. And so we developed a, uh, a UPS shippable kit. And so, uh, what we'll do is we'll I'll either dropship it or I'll give them the outline part number. They can order it themselves. We're not making any money on the on the box. Doesn't matter. That's not the point. And then will you see the kit? And that's going to allow you to set that crate up to hold the machine. Nice. And it shipped secure. And we've shipped dozens of machines. Yeah. And no issues. And we've got a video that we show. Here's how you do it. Oh, nice. Yeah, that's that's daunting. I remember having to ship a piece of equipment back. I don't even remember what it was, but it was huge. And it was awkward. Yep. And it sat there for weeks because I didn't know how to do it. Yeah, yeah. And and you know that that's one of like. When you think about like sales processes, that's one of the bigger like humps to get to for sure. Um, and so early on had to come up with a way to fix that because you can't. One slight annoyance is if you did want that original roll in box, it's comprised of like 50 different SKUs for every little piece of cardboard. And it's a different skew. So you couldn't really order the original box. You could, but it'll take you all afternoon to find all the SKUs, and then half of them will potentially be backordered. And it's like, yeah, that's just a box, maybe just a box. But, you know, it's kind of like, keep the you gotta keep the box. Yeah, yeah. Uh, well, there's your one piece of advice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm full of advice. Uh, and so, uh, yeah, we get a machine in and do our magic. Um, how long has it usually take you to rebuild? Uh, so our our our turn time is ten business days. Ten business days. Yeah. Yeah. And so, uh, and then, depending on where we are in the country, you can expect anywhere from 3 to 5 days per leg on the freight. Okay. Uh, so, you know, your realistic expectation is 3 to 4 weeks. Okay. On a turn. So it's not an emergency service. You're not going to have it back to me within an hour or the next day, so I can keep working. Unlikely. Unlikely. Yeah. You know, labs that are local to us in Southern California. Uh, we do have, you know, loaner equipment that we can swap out and stuff. Um, but the the economics don't work for shipping that across the country. I get it. And doing it like that. But it's a fun time. And, you know, at the end of the day, my entire my entire philosophy is like, how can I help as many labs as possible? Yeah. And doing it through the, the Roland, uh, you know, Roland ecosystem is a great way to do it because so many people have them. And, uh, it's been a pleasure over the last few years to build a build a service that. Yeah, that people are, people are reacting well to. What about cosmetically, you know, like the outside of a rolling mill? I mean, those break do you think they do? I mean, yeah, yeah. Can you like, revamp it so it looks brand new? I mean, could you even go that far? Yeah, yeah. All those parts are available. So nuts to me that everything is. You could just order. So oftentimes. Well, not often, but we've seen some machines probably. Over the last couple of years, maybe half a dozen or so that took significant damage in shipping. Oh, yeah. Um, and, uh, and so, like, the door will be broken or there'll be there was one that a forklift actually impaled the front of the box, and it went through the front of the machine and just shattered the whole door and everything. You fixed it? Yeah. Yeah. And so, uh, you know, that's like. Oh, we have our body shop over here in the corner. Yeah. And so we can, you know, we can, uh, replace panels and doors and, uh, uh, and then the other cool thing on the aesthetic side, which, um, uh, I haven't had very many people take take me up on this, but, uh, we have the ability to, uh, uh, print a skin for the front of the machine. You can wrap it. Yes. Yeah. So you could put, like, a lab logo on it or a lab or a lab logo. Um, uh, we did one that's full woodgrain. Oh, nice. Yeah. And it's even, you know, it's it's precision cut. You know, um, ironically, it's done on a rolling machine. Yeah. Because their printer. Yeah, their ink printer. A lot of lab guys don't know that. Roland's got other business. Yes. Uh, one of them is large format print. Sure. Uh, the wrap thing is a big thing. And, uh, early on, I got my hands on one of those machines. That would be cool just to do it. Oh, yeah? Yeah. You put your logo on it. Um, I've been wanting to get somebody to let me do a flame job. That would be nice. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's so many things you could do. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Sky's the limit. If you have the, you know, graphics from your your marketing. Yeah. Uh, files and stuff. We can we can build that. Why would somebody not? Well, I guess it is. Well, you know, there's a cost. Right. But it's not really necessary. But it's just fun. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's there's all kinds of fun stuff like that you can mess around with. You know, I if I had a lab, I think it'd be really sweet to to, you know, have, you know, them all lined up perfectly in a row. They all go into each other like, I don't know, Marvel characters or. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a there's a lab I was in in, uh, not too long ago that that, um, named all their roles after the Transformers. So you had, like, Megatron and. Yeah. Bumblebee. See, they need the the logo of them. Yeah, I would go 80s cartoon version. Not the movie, but yeah, each of their own. But yeah, I think I'd probably be with you on that. Yeah, yeah. So you don't have to talk about price. But what you showed me in that hallway was it's just like one price gets it in there, gets it done. Yeah. Do you have. Yeah. Is there any pricing structure like if it's not as bad as you thought when you opened it up or how does that work. So there's two ways that it can go. We can go repair route. Yeah. Or we can go full rebuild route okay. And so the full rebuild, we've flat rated it because we already know what needs to be replaced. We've done we've done a significant amount of them. And so we try to simplify that offering. And then the repair route a lot of times it doesn't need a full rebuild. You bring your car to the mechanic. It might need a valve job or something, but it doesn't need a full engine and transmission. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Right. And so, uh, we that's the majority of customers we serve on us is, uh, you know, hey, it's making lines. Let's figure out why and then. Okay, we found a component that's that's failed or failing intermittently or what have you. Yeah. Um, and, uh, and more and more of these days, uh, because lab owners are scrappy, too. Yeah. Uh, and they're willing to turn screwdrivers. And so, uh, one of the things we do a lot of is we'll figure out what the problem is remotely. Yep. Ship you the parts and the tools that you need, and then set up a time and do FaceTime or Google Meet or whatever, and take the take apart a machine on our side while you're doing yours in parallel and show you step by step how to put the party. Oh that's huge. Yeah. Now you're less downtime, less shipping. All that. Yeah, yeah. And and there's some common repairs that that we're doing more and more of on that. Yeah. Um, and, and we've, we've had success doing, like, pretty insane deep surgery with some of these things. Really? Yeah. Yeah. You gotta have a good person on the other end. You know, I strip every screw that I touch, so. Well, that's always a discussion. Point is, you know, okay, let's not strip any screws. Let's not cut any wires. If we can get away with that, that it's, uh, that it's good. I'm the one that's hitting it if it won't come out. You know what I mean? Just like. Yeah, yeah. Uh, and, you know, all issues are addressable. You know, you can you can fix and and get around any, any sort of, uh, any sort of problem. I love it and most rebuilds fix most repairs. So the rebuild will fix everything and anything so that if if you just went at it with all your meals with that. Yeah, you get brand new meals almost. Yeah. And, and, uh, and part of the process, uh, we have a, we have a mailing center service that we, uh, it's not well known. We don't do a lot of it, but we do it as a, uh, help our customers sort of thing. So when they're fixing the mill, you're doing their work. They can. It's. It's an option. Yeah, it's an option. Um, small percentage of labs take take advantage of it. Uh, but we've got mills running and running units, uh, you know, most, most of the day. Wow. Uh, and so, as part of our rebuild service, uh, that completed mill goes into our milling room to test, and it spends a day in there or more, and we make sure it mills good units before we ship it. Oh. That's awesome. Yeah, because there's nothing worse than you rebuild it and they try one. Works good. Ship it back and then. Yeah, yeah, two hours later, it's not working. A significant portion of the time we have it there is testing it to make sure it's good for you. Nice. Yeah. Uh, because, you know, you can throw a part at something and, like. Were you right or were you not right? Yeah. And the proof is in. Hey, can I make a good unit? Yeah. And you'll know because you're pumping out for other labs. Exactly, exactly. So, uh. Uh, you know, we're not going to put a billion miles on your machine. It's it's only in there for a little while. Uh, but, um. Yeah, it's it's a necessary part of the process. Interesting, I love it. Yeah. Greg. Denton. Denton. Denton. Denton. Oh, n.com. Yeah, man. Got a rolling mill. Check it out. Hey. Yeah, I love it. Thanks for letting me come to sit down. Yeah, that's some cool stuff. I don't think anyone else is doing this, I love it. Yeah, great. Well, hey, thanks. And, uh, uh, can't wait to listen to the next episode. Have a great day at the show. All right. Thanks, man. Here we are at the Viva la Ballroom lab de Chicago 2025. I'm sitting with Joe Braxton from Everclear. How are you, sir? Oh, I'm doing great today. How about yourself? Doing good. You're. You're still cheerful because we're early on in lab day, I imagine, uh, by tomorrow afternoon. You might not be so cheerful. Yeah. We'll see. That is when. When the pain starts coming in on your feet and everything. Your knees start feeling your age. So what do you do? I have a client. Currently, I'm the field manager for, uh, field repairs and installation for North America. So what, you travel the whole country and install and repair and. Well, I have a team that does most of the traveling because they're all, uh, uh, regionally located. But every once in a while, I fill in as well, so. Yeah. So how did you get into this? How did you learn how to fix a mill? Oh, man. Um, I'm. I was a machinist by trade. Okay. Yeah. So I've been with 5:00 for my going on 13 years. Or just over 13 years? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I worked in the automotive industry prior to coming into cars and stuff. Well, more so at, uh, manufacturing plants. Oh, so fabricating cars? Yeah. Yeah. Which car company? Chrysler. Oh. No kidding. Yeah, that's pretty much was my background. And then I kind of just fell into the the dental side of it, and it was added like after an ad or something, or did they seek you out or how does one go from cars? Chief Mills. Well, all right, so, uh, it was going into the coming out of the recession. So a lot of the automotive industry was laying people off. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and my brother, he was also in the automotive industry. So he ends up finding this job at a place called diadem, which is a milling center company. And this was in Detroit, Michigan or Detroit. Is that where you guys are from? Yes. Oh, well. Make sense. Cars? Yeah. Well, basically, he told me about this magical place where everything was so clean and all of this, and I'm like, no smaller. Yeah. I'm like, no way, no way. Uh, long story short, he gets me in there. A milling center? Yeah. And what are they milling at this time? Just like zirconia. Emax blocks zirconia. Okay. Yeah. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. So what did you do there? Just. I load mills. I started as a, um, a camera, and then our CAD cam loaded mills. Then I became a trainer, and. Oh, wow. Then I managed up on it pretty good then. Yeah. Yeah. Then we became. I became technical support. You over exceed your brother. He left. Oh, that was the other thing. Yeah. He moved. He left and moved to new Jersey. Him and his wife and kids for a job at Three Shape. Oh. No kidding. Wow. Yeah, man, this place must have really spawned some good people. It's insane. It made some changes, for sure. And then, uh. What? Uh. Long story short, with that one to come back full circle. Yeah, he actually came back to LA, and, uh, he works for me now as one of my my effects. That's hilarious. Yeah. That's hilarious. So you're you're working the milling center, and I'm sure you're dealing with all these mills and the issues that come up. Yeah, so we kind of learned how to fix them just. Just by having to. Yeah. Yeah. So how did you position yourself to go to Everclear? Did they? Everclear acquired, uh, diadem. Oh. So it kind of just. Okay. Yeah. Why did they acquire it? Are they a million center? Do they mill? No, but it was more of a we were used. As for back up warranty billing for customers who did have if they buy a mill, it goes down. You guys handled that work for them? Yeah, they still do that. We deal with. It's a little different now, but yes. Yeah, we do do it. Is it not out of Detroit anymore? Well, no. We have our own milling center in Amherst now. Uh, recently opened. Just, uh, this this this new year. Oh, no. Yeah, I was gonna say I was there last year, and I didn't see any sort of milling center. Yep, yep. Just this new year, we have a new running. That or I am not. Why not? It sounds like you know what to do. I have I helped get everything set up, but no, I am not running it. Yeah, I have enough on my plate as it is. So what is your role now? You have teams out there. Someone says, hey, my PM is doing something weird. So if there's an issue, the we, uh, as soon as the, uh, machines has been diagnosed to be a problem, we have a five day, what we call a KPI to get somebody out there. What's KPI? Uh. Stuff. You don't know what it means. That's funny. That's hilarious. I love a good Ackermann. I do, I just can't think of it off the top of my head. But it's basically a lead time target. Yeah. Okay, so you got five days to get out there and fix the thing to get it out there and fix them, man. Uh, we have 11 guys across North America. 11 people. Yep. And you train all these people how to fix things? Yes. We bring them in for training. How long is that training? It's usually two weeks, especially for, uh, onboarding a new employee. Yeah. I mean, do you have, like, a room with just, like, everything that I have a car makes in pieces? It looks like that a graveyard is what we call it, but, yeah. Yeah. Um, insanely cool. But but you also got to understand, they don't just learn how to fix the machines, because these guys also install equipment, and then they train the customer on how to use the meals and things of that nature. So it's a very special niche type person that we look for for this job. But so somebody buys equipment, one of these 11 will show up to install it. And then it's like, how long is that process to train an office on it? Well, it's usually 2 to 3 days just for user training on how to use it. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's great that somebody comes out and trains everyone. You don't just ship it and it's like, oh no you can't. Not with this equipment. Not that it's difficult to use, but it does require some training. And we love to stress the maintenance because that's going to keep your mill running of course, longer. So you're supposed to keep it clean. What? Do you ever go out there and see some mills that are pretty neglected? Yeah, there's there's a there's always going to be a few. Yeah. Can't believe people drop that money and then just kind of let it go down the hill. I know it's like buying an Aston Martin and never changing the oil like that. What's the most common thing that you run into with issues with the mills or or any of your. I mean, you don't just do mills. I just keep bringing up mills as an example. But you guys have all sorts of equipment, printers and all that. Or fortunately for me, I've been able to focus just on our mills, so. Well, there's the most moving parts. So I imagine that's going to have the most issues just by nature of what it does. Yeah, absolutely. Anything with moving parts is going to go down. Is not necessarily. I would never pointed towards the mill itself, per se. Yeah, it's just moving parts wear and tear. Over time, things need to be replaced. Absolutely. We run into those type of situations a lot with the spindle. Yeah. Spindles. Yeah. Yeah. I know a few words that are in a mill. Spindles, water pumps, things like that. Which which one is the hardest to fix? Is there one that's like, got so much going in, like those multi disc changers have to be just a whole other level of. The good thing is that thing doesn't really break. Really. That's funny to me. I'd say we've only had to replace two of them and it weighs half a ton. Oh, wow. Yeah, but they they don't really go bad. It's more so like sensors or things. Simple things like that. Yeah. The mills also are very modular, so it's not so difficult to repair. Yeah. Most most parts. Yeah, yeah. I would say the most difficult would be the b axis assembly or the b axis harmonic drive. Oh that, that's, that's a day and a half to two day work. Just because it's so deep inside the machine. It's connected to a lot of things and then has to be re calibrated back into place. So there's a lot a lot that goes into that. And you do that on site. Absolutely. All the all the program repairs are on site. Really. So nobody shipped anything back to Iowa to fix. Not not no. No program. There's no, uh, technical side or, uh, furnaces and things like that get shipped in. Okay. Do you work on those? No, I do not. You're just Mills, Jess. Mills. We already have way too many products. I just want to focus on. Yeah. One the PM seven. Is that the most common mill you guys are? Yeah, I would say so. I believe right now in North America, we have over 560 of them. And out in the field. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're great. Mills. I mean, Barb, my co-host, who's not here this weekend. She loves that thing. Yeah. Yeah. They're workhorses. And again, with, like, any type of piece of equipment, if you treat it right, it'll treat you right. Yeah. That's some true words right there. If they do Iverson on it, does that cause any different wear. So not necessarily different. It does. The resistance on the spindle is a little more when you're milling material. Yeah. But same thing for I mean that would go for even Emax and that's that's for any, any mill. Not just the old mill. Yeah. The people try to get you to come in to fix their other mills. No. Hey, since you're here. No, I mean, I have been asked something similar to that, but. No. Yeah. No, it's not a regular thing. But with the program, Mills, again, there's always going to be harder materials. So, yeah, to answer your question, Iverson can be a little harder on the mill. So can, um, emax. But that being said, that's where we all mills have those same those same issues where we kind of. Step aside or to bring ourselves apart from that is is with our customer care and our service and the the fact that we are there to repair this meal within five days. So if your meal goes down, we also have the backup milling center as an option where customer can pay to get his. You want to continue your meal while we're waiting on us, while your meal is down and you have this option, we'll get it to a two day turnaround. Really? Yeah. So pretty much anything that any of our materials. Yeah, yeah. But this is only for our customers with our that actually that makes sense. You don't want to open it up. You don't want to be a milling center again. No. You just want to help. Yeah. Yeah. If anyone has a meal, even if they bought it previously, has this service available to anyone that has a that's not even tied into the service contract. So you can call in if your meal goes down, you can use the milling center. It's just a nominal fee, but it's a lesser fee than any anywhere else that you would get. You're paying for the material. Yeah. Yeah. And what, you just shoot the files over? Yep. We have a web portal and everything, so there's a link that will get sent to them. They go to our site website and they input all the information designs for them. No designs. Come on man. Well you're gonna stain them when they're done. No, I want it back. Finished and ready to go. No, no, no, we wouldn't go that far. Uh, zirconia, send that back. Yeah, and other than that. So you center it, we'll center those. Oh, no kids. Wow, wow. You do go above what you need to do. Because, I mean, if even though my mills down the center, an oven still probably working, but still, we feel like to help the customer save time if you get it back already centered, that's, you know. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Plus it's easier to ship. Safer. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Joe, thanks so much, man. Hey, that's some interesting stuff. What are you doing here in Chicago? You're not fixing anything. People aren't bringing their broken meals to you. So we're here for support. Obviously, we set up the equipment that we do bring. So me and my team are filled with this stuff to Chicago Lab Day. We've done it for so many years that now it's just not. It doesn't even second nature. Imagine how you get stuff here with all this other stuff and it don't get mixed up. But yeah. No. And our system we have. And now that's our, uh, our coordinating team, our show, our show team that coordinates all the shipping and handling. And they do a fantastic job. You just set it up. Yeah. And then you just hang around and answer questions, set it up, support it. And then, yes, we support the sales team in regards to the knowledge, maybe some questions, things that they're not familiar with. Sure. Yeah. Well that's cool man. I appreciate it I learned a lot. Uh, mostly just about what happens if if it goes down. You know, because I'd love to say that things don't go down. I'm sure you guys would love to say none of our stuff goes down. But in truth, it does. Yeah, it always will. The the important part is, is what happens when it does. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's where customer care yeah. Comes in to play. Yeah. You want to give out your personal cell phone number on the podcast so people can just text you at 3 a.m.? I don't think I'll do that. But all of we do have a website and everything can be found on the customer care customer care website. So, Joe, thank you so much, man. Yeah, it's a pleasure. I appreciate you. Have a good show. Thank you. Bye. A big thanks to everybody that sat down with Elvis. I so missed that that last day. So sad. And the Iowa car ballroom at Labor Day Chicago. And of course, we love hearing the stories of people in our industry. And Chris definitely has one that we have not heard before. So go follow him on Instagram. It's a lot of fun. What is it again? Elvis C-H underscore denture underscore King. You know how I am with the underscore. So check him out. And who doesn't love a good a great reliable resource in business? It makes sense to me that if you even have a role rolling mill that you get to know, Greg. And definitely check out dent on. Com. It's no secret guys that I love the PM sevens from Ava and I love Ava car and it's great to hear that they have behind the scene people like Joe to make sure everything keeps running smoothly. So let's hope. Well I do I do say this. Honestly, let's hope I don't need him anytime soon because I got a lot of work. Thank you guys. All right, everybody, that's all we got for you. We will talk to you next week. Yeah. Bye. Oh my God. I know you're recording this. Of course I am. You know, what I do is I rub shampoo on my face. That's what I do. Yeah, well, the views and opinions expressed on the voices from the bench podcast are those of the guests, and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the host or voices from the bench, LLC.