Voices from The Bench

It's amazing how quick the last three years have gone. Elvis and Barb have enjoyed every minute making this podcast and getting to meet so many wonderful people in our industry. To celebrate your birthday/anniversary, we brought back our very first guest on the podcast, Renata Budny. Renata is an associate professor at the New York City College of Technology teaching in the Department of Restorati...

Let's be honest, dental technology is one of the greatest careers. You get to create and help people at the same time. Super satisfying. But imagine if you also got to do it for movies and television, creating iconic characters. That is exactly what Gary Archer does. He was asked to make a denture in one of the most famous scenes involving a denture falling out of a mouth and from there they never...

So you get a letter from the FDA stating that they will be in your lab in a few weeks to inspect your operations for a certain restoration you are fabricating. What do you do? Panic? Leave town? Put your model room in charge and say good luck? Tim Torbenson has been dealing with the FDA and the dental industry for years and that's why he started Evo820 to help labs be compliant with the new rules....

There are many 3D printers in our industry. But one of them was the creator of the technology most of them use now. Al Siblani created EnvisionTEC out of years of experience in the automotive industry printing wooden molds. Expanding on the idea and seeing a need in other industries, Al disrupted other markets before introducing it to the dental industry. Al talks about the history of EnvisionTEC,...

As Texas thaws out, it is time to think about the Dental Laboratory Association of Texas annual conference. March 26 & 27 in Grapevine Texas. Voices From the Bench will be recording remotely from the Argen booth again this year. Register today and stop by and chat with us! Mike Farago's father was a dedicated dental technician. Somehow, Mike grew up not wanting to be a dental technician. But w...

One would think that to bring a line of dental products geared towards full arch restorations to America you would have to know how to use it. Defying all odds, Tay Harvey took a degree in Journalism, a love for the mini implants, and a passion for the dental laboratory industry to bring anaxdent to North America. Tay talks about how she took a chance on a "little known" product line out of German...

Head over to the DLAT Southwest Conference and Expo March 26-27, 2021 . Voices From the Bench will be recording remotely LIVE, NOT LIVE from the Argen booth! How are you sleeping? Well, if you listen to our podcast while in bed, it's probably pretty good. But most people have some form of sleep apnea. Dental sleep devices are becoming a bigger and bigger appliance for labs to get into. Dr. Mark Mu...

We welcome back Bennett Napier from the NADL (National Association of Dental Laboratories) . Bennett stops by the podcast for a brief update of the state of our industry, technicians getting vaccines, and the upcoming Vision 21 meeting being held April 8 - 10 in Nashville, TN. While many labs are already full into the digital workflow, some are still looking for a way to enter the "game". And some...

A lot of labs fabricate overdentures. Hader bars, Dolder Bars, and wrap around bars for fixed hybrids. All very common in our industry. But years ago Arian Deutsch from Deutsch Dental Arts found a better solution and built a lab and career around it. Taking skills from both CAD/CAM and handcrafted art, Arian was able to make patient removable restorations by using 0 degree gold Electro-formed subs...

We all know how hard it is to find good, talented, and knowledgeable removable technicians. Even when good candidates get into the field, it's not an easy skill to train. Enter the Swiss School of Prosthetics . Steffen Rohrbach came to America with a German degree in dental technology and after a time in the Army, Steffen connected with Edmonds Dental Prosthetics in Springfield, Missouri. With a p...

Most of us think we have a pretty good team in our lab. But sometimes you run in to a couple of technicians that, when together, create great work and even better experiences. Conrad Rensburg came to this country as a trained dental technician and over the years eventually purchased Absolute Dental Services . Starting as a smaller lab and then growing to 6 locations, Conrad needed to improve and i...

One of the most common restorations for labs to "outsource" is metal frameworks and flexible partials. The training, personal, and equipment is a huge hurdle to overcome and Bertram Dental Lab can be your partner. All made in the US and decades of experience. Growing up in a lab that almost 100% made metal frames for other labs, Tim Bertram started at an early age. Now he owns Bertram Dental Lab t...

Imagine taking your skill and talents working on the bench everyday and becoming known as the "best-of-the-best" in overdentures. You can! For the last 4 years Panthera Dental has put on the Panther Master Cup , a contest featuring the best technicians from around the world competing in making the best double overdenture case. The co-founder of Panthera and past podcast guest Béatrice Robichaud co...

It all started with a meme we made on Facebook August 25th, 2020. Check it out . Dentsply Sirona reached out to us wanting to have someone one the podcast to talk about what they are doing. Lucky for us, we got to talk to Jimmy Stegall. Jimmy is a true laboratory technician who has a loud voice within Dentsply Sirona. He talks about his early days and his decision to leave the lab and work for a m...

Regardless of size, dental laboratories need to be productive, efficient, and to deliver products on time. Imagine a software that can help you do all those things so you can free up time to concentrate on the quality and consistency. Richard Pickard came to the US with a concept of helping dental labs with their production. He started Inventrix , a company that makes the LabTrac Enterprise softwa...

** Vote for Voices From the Bench for best dental podcast of 2020!!! This podcast is all about featuring people from and associated with our industry. But it's not very often that we get to talk with someone that 100% of the people in dentistry have heard of. Jim Glidwell from Glidewell Laboratories , comes on the podcast to talk about how he accidently and without a plan grew to be one of the lar...

Don Bell, the Vice President of Product Marketing in North America for Ivoclar Vivadent , has seen a lot of products come and go. He has seen a lot of technology come and go. As labs and manufacturers enter this new era of dentistry, Don and Ivoclar has had to adapt. But in a good way. Don talks about what happened at Ivoclar during the shutdown and how they are coming back, their one-puck denture...

When you can't be somewhere, the next best thing is to talk to the people who could. That is what Elvis and Barb did in early October. Argen partnered up with VFTB to set up a computer and a microphone at the DLAT (Dental Laboratory Association of Texas) conference and talk to many of the attendees. This week wraps up all of the fantastic conversations from wonderful people who were brave enough t...

What do you do when you can't travel to see friends? You do the next best thing. The Dental Laboratory Association of Texas held their annual conference in October this year. While Elvis and Barb wanted to be there, they couldn't. So the good people at Argen set up a computer and microphone at their booth and got people from the event to sit down and do the next best thing we are calling "Live, No...

Remember Lab Day Chicago? When dental technicians from around the world could get together with our worry or concern. When the pandemic hit every show, event, conference, and symposium got pushed to a later date or canceled. Most moved until 2021. But not Texas! Texas pulled off a successful IN-PERSON conference in early October. Unfortunately Voices From the Bench could not attend... physically....

It's amazing how far zirconia has come in our industry. There are monolithic crown that have such good translucency that they rival lithium disilicate. But so many labs still layer them to get the desired results. Enter MIYO . the liquid ceramic that is taking the lab industry by storm (a name of one of their translucent colors). Don Cornell saw a need to improve the monolithic zirconia crown. To...

We hear about dental offices having a in-office dental lab, but what we don't hear enough is a dental lab in a dentist office doing what they are doing at Family Dental Associates in Georgia. Dr. Jack Bell is sailing the vessel as Patch Garcia ( Excel Dental Lab ) is the crew that every successful dentist needs. Together they are leading the digital workflow and providing top-of-the-line restorati...

Voices From the Bench is all about showcasing people that love what they do, show true passion for it, and do everything they can to share it with our community. Not many people do this more than Josef Kolbeck. Josef came into our industry through jewelry and has not stopped learning and growing since. His passion is strong and he wanted to educate others what he has learned. He developed the OMP,...

Dental Technicians, learn about a possible career path. This weekend is the National Denturist Association Virtual Conference - October 16-17, 2020 . CHECK IT OUT! Vincent Silva is a technician that saw a need for computers being built specifically for dental CAD/CAM systems. Jed Archibald is a mega technician with experiences most of us could only dream of having. Putting these two together, we e...

Denturism is a great way for a dental technician to take their career to the "next level". It's really the best of both worlds. Maybe you don't think you can do it? Maybe it's not regulated in your state? On this week's episode the president of the National Denturist Association Eric Hansen and past guest Patrick Allen talk about running their practices during COVID, working with states to become...