Denture Making
I suddenly realised that I have not actually posted up photos of my completed denture work. Granted, I've probably whinged about how bad my life is in the dental lab melting wax and setting plastic teeth at the exact correct angle and inclination but a picture is worth a thousand words. So here we go...
My denture model in the articulator, which is a very expensive metal device that set me back about 1000 AUD because it can do 'everything' - i.e. simulate how a jaw moves in an actual mouth. At this stage the gum part which is usually made of acryllic in real dentures is still made of wax...which we painstakingly mould to ressemble what you see in the picture. Just in case you were wondering, it takes an ignorant dental student about 9 hours to set both the upper and lower jaw teeth in and about 6 hours to get the wax gums looking like that. A qualified dental technician finishes everything in 2 hours or less. Hmph.
Up close and personal photo of my upper denture and my very poorly manicured thumb (no point painting nails if you're doing dentistry - it gets destroyed the day after).
Another view of the upper denture. There's a piece of wire that's set into the wax to strengthen the entire structure. Incidentally, the pliers supplied by the dental school suck big time. I have cut myself with the wires at least 3 times by now while trying (extremely unsuccessfully while cursing) to cut and shape the wires to the desired length and curvature.
After all that effort, the next thing to do is to sit and pray hard... very very hard that the denture fits into the patient's mouth.
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