Hey, Voices of the Bench community! Eric Neuhaus, Marketing Manager at Ivoclar here. Bring greater efficiency and flexibility to your denture workflow with Ivoclar, Ivoclar's digital denture system. Ivoclar helps labs reduce manual production steps while delivering predictable, high-quality aesthetics. With new shade options available in both Ivoclar Dent Multi and our Ivoclar Monolithic discs, you can broaden your offering and deliver more personalized results. Reach out to your local Ivoclar representative today and discover what I've ocean can do for your lab. So Barb, an overdue congratulations are in order.
Oh my God, what did I do now, Elvis?
Didn't you all recently announce the Simply Arch studio?
Yes, we did.
That's awesome. You know that's right up my alley there.
Of course I do.
And just for anyone who hasn't seen the announcement, what is this Simply Arch thing?
All right, so Simply Arch is our dedicated full arch lab. So it's high quality, full arch cases are a big part of what we do. And we wanted a team and a dedicated workflow and a production environment built specifically around them.
So basically just no distractions.
Exactly. Just a bunch of full arch nerds doing full arch things.
Oh God, a bunch of nerds sounds terrifying.
It's never terrifying of it.
And does a new studio Also mean new toys.
Yes, and of course, we recently brought in Xterra Mill as part of the project.
Hell yeah, nice.
Yeah, and then of course came the cam decision.
Here we go, the old cam decision.
You know, Elvis, we tested a couple options and of course we landed on Hyperdent.
Like Hyperdent, just as easy as that, As easy as that, pretty much.
The quality off the machine was excellent. So that means also no hand finishing and the milling times were excellent also.
You're right, that does make the decision quite easy.
But honestly, what really stood out to us was the testing and impact. implementation process.
How so?
You could immediately tell these guys live in a world of high complex milling challenges.
That's got to build a lot of confidence.
You know what? It really did, and it really does. They weren't just showing us how the software works. They were advising us on the best way to build an entire workflow for our lab. You could tell they've done it 100 times, guys.
That's a whole new different level of expertise. Well, congratulations on the new studio, Barb.
Thank you. Hats off to my dad for the studio. So it means a lot to me.
Welcome to Voices from the Bench, a dental laboratory podcast. Send us an e-mail at info at voicesfromthebench.com and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Greetings and welcome to episode 448 of Voices from the *****. My name is Elvis.
My name's Barbara. What's up?
What's happening, Barb? How are you? How's life after Labfest?
Oh, well, life after Labfest rolled in on Sunday morning at like 6 a.m. and it's been crazy ever since. What about you?
Yeah. Well, getting home, I left Saturday night and I was supposed to get home around midnight I ended up getting home about 3 A.m. That was the time you got up in New Orleans to catch a plane for Sunday 6 A.m. How strange.
I think it's better to get up early than to take a later flight nowadays. Sorry about airlines, but airlines suck.
They do. They're horrible.
They're horrible.
I was just happy to get home because I really thought I was going to be spending the night in Charlotte, but I did get home, but 3 A.m. is a little rough. The week was a little rough. I don't feel like I ever caught up on sleep for the whole week, but. What a great show. Thanks again, Hyperdent for sponsoring us.
Shout out to Jordan. Yep.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Of course, the Noak, Sean and Brandy and that whole team just putting on a show that is just done right. It's fun. It's educational. It's just a blast. They're already looking forward to next year.
Right. Same here. And then they're probably going to, and I quote, pivot and do something else. We'll see.
Will they take their own theme and use it for a better show?
I pivoted a whole lot, but I really enjoyed it. And yeah, so they're building something great. Thank you, everybody. We just really enjoyed it. And we got a lot of great interviews.
We did. We did. I'm kind of listening through them, cleaning them up a little bit. We had some great conversations. I'm really looking forward to this.
I know.
You mentioned to me that you're doing a lab picnic.
I'm doing a lab picnic today, so it's Saturday. 25th, 24th. I don't know what day it is. Been in the hospital. But yeah, some people came up to me and said, hey, since you took back over, we really miss the community and just doing things. So I did a breast cancer day. Everybody wore pink. We did pizza. And then this Saturday, which is actually today, we are going to play some volleyball and some dodgeball and some kickball. You better watch out because I might be a little competitive.
Oh yeah.
They may leave today going, my God, no, never again. But yeah, I'm super excited. It's going to be fun.
You said it's a picnic, not a competition, Barb. You're supposed to enjoy yourself.
We're doing hot dogs and hamburgers and everybody brings a dish and all their kids. There's about 9,500 people coming. So I'm really excited. And same time, my mom's texted me and said, hey, I'm getting out of the hospital.
So yeah, that's going to be a busy day.
Yeah.
Well, you're going to show up to pick her up and you're going to have ketchup on your chin and sand in your shoes. Be like, mama, I was waiting for you.
Yes, but not out to my dad. Love you, dad. So they came up to me and said, hey, we really want to do this. And I was like, well, I think I can. So fortunately for us Tampa, Florida people, it's going to be 83 today. So it's beautiful.
Yeah, it's Indiana here, so it's already 44 degrees.
Oh, sorry about your luck. You can come down if you want to catch a flight.
Well, you know what? I feel like I need to be part of the night dental picnic. I mean.
Yeah, we'll talk Monday. We'll see what happens. Every single time I throw an event, I get demoted. So I don't know.
HR Barb, watch your HR.
I know. All right, so moving on.
Yeah, so this week we're heading over to England to talk to a dental technician who's carved out a pretty unique niche in the dental lab world. Chris Goltz, who went from answering a little newspaper ad as a teenager to owning his own lab and specializing in thermo. Thermal forming appliances. Thermal forming appliances. We talk about custom sports mouth guards, night guards, retainers, whitening trays, and some seriously creative designs that take mouth guards way beyond your basic colors.
I think there might be some phallic looking pictures in people's mouth guards, which is kind of sexy, I think. But hey.
What's real interesting is we talk about his journey from the model room to running his own specialized lab, why he decided to focus on thermoforming, and how social media helped him discover just how big and supportive the dental lab community can be. So join us as we chat with Chris Goles. Attention, dental lab owners and managers! Think about your daily workflow. Are you still hunting through piles of paper invoices? Are doctors texting you to see if a crown is even finished? Are you logging into six different portals just to grab digital scans from your doctors? You didn't start a dental lab to become a full-time paper wrangler. It's time to streamline your business with Lab and Cloud. Built by techs just like you, for you. Lab and Cloud is the ultimate all-in-one platform engineered to run your entire lab. With over 90 powerful features, you can automate everything. You can track cases in real time, generate smart invoices, manage local delivery and shipping, and handle employee time tracking. All from a single, cloud-based dashboard. Even better, your doctors will get a dedicated portal to submit cases seamlessly. And your digital scanner files? They route automatically into your workflow, completely secure with full HIPAA compliance. Stop burning time on administrative chaos, scale your business, delight your dentist, and take back your day! Visit. labingcloud.com right now to book your free personalized demo. That's L-A-B, the letter N, cloud.com. Labing Cloud, your lab simplified. The operating system for dental labs built for text by text. Hey, just mention Elvis is handsome and get one month free.
Your customers are checking you out on social media long before they ever fill out a form or pick up the phone. By the time they reach you, they've already made-up their mind. That's why social matters. But making content is hard. Showing up consistently is harder. And consistency is the whole game. Accounts that go from posting just two times a week to five times a week see way more impressions per post and five times the engagement. The more consistently you show up, the more it pays off. That's why we built Icortica Social. Yes, something new and exciting from iCortica. With iCortica Social, you can create, schedule, publish, and report on social media, all in one place. And the best part is that your whole team can contribute content. Just place a QR code wherever the work happens, in the lab, at an event, and your team can grab what's already on their phone and send it straight to marketing to turn into a social post. As always, our goal at iCortica is to make it easy for you to grow. iCortica Social works as standalone app too, so no existing icortica subscription is needed. And it can be used by anyone looking to improve their performance on social. Check it out at icortica.com/social. That's icortica. I-C-O-R-T-I-C-A.com/social.
Voices from the bench. The interview. Golz.
Golz. Golz.
Chris Golz. I love it. Barb and I are super excited today because we finally get to talk to another social media expert with the memes. Chris Golz. How are you, sir?
Yeah, very well, thank you. I appreciate your time.
Yeah, absolutely. I think it was a few people over the years that mentioned that we needed to get you on and just time and circumstance. But I'm finally happy to get your story, Chris. So tell us, where are you from? Because you don't sound like you're from America.
No, I'm in England, in Yorkshire. It's a town, well, it's a city now, actually. It's Doncaster in Yorkshire.
Nice.
Yeah, it's not a huge, it's not a huge town, but yeah, it's where I've worked all my life. Yeah, so it's sure. Yeah.
And it's rush hour right now and you're on the side of the road.
It's not quite the side of the road. It's what they call a park and ride, which, you know. It does sound a bit dodgy, but it's basically a bus stop with a big car park.
Beautiful. Well, thank you for joining us. All right.
Yeah, we appreciate you not driving when you're talking. We don't want to be responsible for any accident.
No, Well, the internet at the lab is at the moment is terrible. the building some sort of like a business park over the back and somebody said that they were changing the masts to do with the internet with the Wi-Fi or something. So for the last couple of months it's been pretty bad. So I thought best to be somewhere where I can at least just use me 5G signal.
It must be going around. We were recording what Barb last week and I lost internet at the completely.
All of a sudden we couldn't hear Elvis anymore. Not on the phone and not on the computer. It was a little scary.
Yeah, we went dark.
Yeah, it got that bad this week. I actually had to go home to do some work. It was, you know, it was that bad. It just dropped out completely. So, jeez. I bet the management decision to go home and do some, like, design some models and design some So rather than it just being in and out all the time, I know it worked. It's probably 10 minutes from home as well. So it's not bad.
Oh, that's not bad. So Chris, tell us, how did you get into teeth? How did you get into this industry? Right.
I think probably a lot of people in the UK, we tend to sort of stumble into it. I think a lot of times I quite soon after school, I was 17. and I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I didn't have particularly good exam results. They were called GCSEs over here. They might be called something else now, but at the time it was GCSEs. And I didn't get particularly good results, so I didn't have that much choice really. There was a free, like a free paper, a local free paper, which had all the classifieds, adverts, things for sale, what's on?
So you're dating yourself. We had to look in the paper.
I was thinking that, yeah. I got it worth a long time. No internet jobs there. Yeah, it was a small advert in the local free, the Doncaster Free Press it was. And it was for, it didn't actually say what the job was, but I think it just said dental laboratory staff required or something like that. And I had no idea what a dental laboratory did at the time. So I actually went to the library. I might have mentioned this before somewhere, but I actually went to the library to find out what a dental technician did.
Again, you're dating yourself.
Yeah, so it must have.
Caught your eye and you're like, what the heck is that?
Yeah, I mean, I didn't really have a choice. It didn't ask, it didn't say a particular age, it didn't, you know, for the applicants. There was nothing mentioned about qualifications, you know, exam results. Anything like that. So I thought, well, that could be me. So I went to the library to find out what a dental technician was. Sweet.
What did it say? Crazy, overworked, underpaid. Oh, wait, no.
Life balance. Like some drink.
I think they were just pictures of dentures. I mean, I didn't know what a crown or a bridge was at the time, but a family member did have a denture. So I knew it was that denture. Existed, but I didn't, but I guess, like a lot of people who don't know what we do, they just assume the dentist, they just assume the dentist makes it, they go for one appointment and the next thing the teeth turn up and they just assume it's all done there. So, that was my introduction to the lab.
So the next day you went and knocked on the door and said, I want to apply.
It was, well, we had telephones back then, strangely enough, so I actually hang them up.
Not that far back.
I think I rang them up and arranged an interview. It would have been pretty soon after I applied, I would imagine. Sure.
What do you think? You walk in there and what?
I walked in there. It kind of just like a workshop. It wasn't sort of pristine, clinical. It was a local, it was in the next village to where I lived.
Yeah.
It was attached to a dental practice. It was out the back, you know, as you can imagine.
What was the name of the lamb?
It was Doncaster Dental Laboratory. I think they got really creative with the name.
Yeah.
It was owned by the dentist, the practice upstairs. There was a guy who owned that practice and lots, well not lots, there may be around 7:00 or eight other ones around the town. It's in different villages in the town, and he actually owned the lab, so it was a dentist-owned laboratory at the time.
That's pretty common over there, isn't it?
I think it was at one point. I can imagine that there's not a lot to be made on... I think it's more of a convenience thing rather than to make money for the practice. I think it's more of a convenience thing rather than a financial one. Because a few years later, they actually sold it to us, so it can't be that good business.
So what did you end up doing when you started? I'm guessing model work.
Yeah, I spent a fair bit of time in the model room, to be fair. The usual sort of articulating models, casting up, investing. those types of jobs. I would imagine most technicians of my probably do a probably done a similar thing. we all start out doing the models.
Did you love it?
I wouldn't say I loved it. I found it interesting. It was quite interesting sort of working, you know, working with my hands. You know, I've always enjoyed sort of making things, building stuff, and you know, as a kid, those sorts of toys. which I had, it probably stood me in good stead, really. So, I were probably more arty than academic, I think, at school, even though I failed my arts, subject as well. But it was quite interesting. I think I kind of think I took to it all right, to be fair. Yeah.
What was the dentist doing most of? Like, what was he doing at that time that you were doing model work for?
Well, the lab was, it was split into two departments. There was the prosthetic department and then the Crown and Bridge ceramics department. And I was in the prosthetics side doing all the plaster work for that side. So...
Dentures, partials.
Yeah, dentures, some ortho appliances which were waxed up and flasked, you know, like a denture would be. Studio models. things like that. I guess things which were traditionally basic, what the apprentices or new starters did. Understood.
Did you move out of the model room eventually?
I was in the model room for quite a few years, to be honest. It was one of those places where there was never much opportunity to sort of push yourself. The staff who were already qualified and sort of hire up, sort of doing the setups. and what have you. There was no incentive for them to teach. Give up. Yeah, to sort of give up some of their work, which is understandable, which is sorry, I get it. So looking back, there wasn't much scope for me to sort of move forward in that department. What actually changed is there were some changes in staff, people sort of come and go, and there was an opportunity to sort of move over to the Crowner Bridge side. And after they start doing some metal work, waxing open, sort of basic ceramic, basic building up at work. So I actually sort of moved across there. I was sort of split between the two departments for a while. And then the prosthetic side decided to leave and set up on their own, which left me solely part of the Crown of Bridge side then.
So Elvis and I talked to a lot of technicians or have talked to a lot of technicians from England and a lot of them have to go to the university first for a couple of years. How were you able to get around that? Is it because you worked for a dentist?
There was at the time there was no requirement to go to college or university and get a qualification.
Okay.
I think there was something before me, a few years before me, because I know one of the guys who was in the prospect department who left, he had some sort of qualification, but I couldn't tell you what that was. But there seemed to be a block of a few years where it wasn't required.
Okay. Thank God, right?
Yeah, because I was **** at the academic stuff, so I think I'd have probably struggled at the time. Yeah, I mean, the idea of sort of going to college, I mean, if there was something available, which there probably was at the time, I would imagine it would have been like a day release type thing, you know, one day in the college or university and then rest of it in the lab. But there was never any mention of sending me there. I mean, I wasn't aware. I'm 17, 18 at the time, you're not aware of a lot of things. Yeah, So there was never any incentive for them to send me there. I would just work and there was no need for me to go sort of, to be a dental technician, if you like. So they weren't going to spend the money or lose a member of staff for a day for me to go. So there was no there was no reason for them to want to send me. And I just wasn't aware of the opportunities to go. So yeah, it's but yeah, I think the GDC register started adding technicians trying to think when this would be now. So we're all actually on a list like a dental professionals list. these days. I'm trying to think when that came in, I can't remember, but you could actually get on if you'd worked over, I think it was, they called it the grandfather clause. Yep, I think if you worked five of the previous seven years in a lab, you was actually, you know, you could get on the technician's register, which is how I got on. I've not been to university to learn anything, to do any courses. It was all done in the lab.
Yeah, that's where. That's the best training. 99% of America.
No doubt. Yeah, I mean, I'm aware of technicians in the UK, probably of a similar age to me who've done the same thing. And I mean, I'm not going to say who they are. That's their business, you know, but some of those are held in quite high regard as well. So I'm in okay company, I think with that. Yeah.
Well, I think you've done all right for yourself.
Yeah, I wasn't trying to be negative. I was just curious like how you got around that.
No, it's something I've never actually been asked that. It's, I think a lot of people just assume everybody goes to university, but there's quite a few of us which didn't have to. And some people have gone since then, they've been on the register, they got in like the grandfather then, and some people would have gone back to learn for whatever reason, you know, but it's just something which has never been, never been something I wanted to.
Yeah, you didn't sound like you wanted to run back to school.
No.
I didn't. Yeah, I was the same way. Thank God my dad wanted me to come to the lab and work because I did not want to go to college and I wasn't a great student. And I learned everything I needed to know from the lab. And I love it.
Yeah, I think there's a lot to be said for sort of working on the job. Like I said, I'm not gonna sort of diss anybody's sort of academic qualifications. I think it's great can do that. there's lots of things which can be learned there, which you might not be able to pick up in the lab, but I do think the actual hands on, just getting in there, roll your sleeves up, get your hands dirty. There's not a lot which can... it's hard to sort of replace that, it's the practical work is pretty important, I think.
You must have had some pretty good people at that first lab though, I mean, to really teach you and show you and take the time to...
Well, I spent quite a while in the model room, so I think you kind of pick up things and you get faster, not just faster, but better at what it takes. You learn how the materials work and it's just, I think it's just... Time, the more the longer you spend at something, it's just naturally going to become, something you get good at. There's a certain thing, yeah, just exactly the 10,000 hours thing into, or whatever it is, but I mean, I did learn, I did learn, a bit, but they were only sort of as good as what they were going to be, it's there was no there was no courses as such like there is now. There's lots of education these days, and it's sort of freely available. There wasn't there wasn't a lot back then that I was aware of. I'm going to say, I'm not going to say it doesn't exist, but it's I think you kind of labs probably were guilty of being in their own little bubble. A lot of the time, and especially if there's a few years in there, it's you get it's almost like your own little community, your own little world, and which, in a way, it can be a good thing. You kind of get close in a way, but at the same time, you can't block out what else is out there. You just hinder yourself, I think, if you don't at least sort of take on board what else is out there to be able to be done. Which I think that's kind of what it came to at the end. you're limited to just what's in that group rather than what's out.
Yeah, so I got you off track with that question and you had just said that you had a tech that moved on and you were able to go into a different position with waxing.
I think you're now there. You're the whole fixed department, weren't you?
The prosthetic department, they left it set up on their own and they were disgruntled with whatever and they decided. set up on their own thing. So there wasn't a department there anymore. And I was, because I'd already got 1 foot and one bum cheek on a seat in the crown department, I were, it was kind of natural for me to just move over there and start, with the wax work for the crown and boot department, yeah.
And then you fell in love, correct? Wax seems amazing.
I did enjoy the sort of Crown of Bridge Department. It was, it was quite interesting. It was a lot less dirty than the prosthetic department. I'm not saying it's better work. It was definitely different. But yeah, it seemed less, certainly less dirty, less dusty.
Yeah.
But looking in a different way, but not, you know, it were, yeah. And I think there's probably that misconception that like a ceramic department is sort of higher or more prestige than the prosthetic department. I mean, I don't think that, but certainly sort of work-wise, it was a little bit cleaner.
Yeah, but ceramists think they're better than everyone else, right, Byron?
No, we are.
You don't think it?
So, it's I was sort of there for a few years, and we actually got the opportunity to buy the lab. it was kind of progressed to, obviously metal work and some ceramics, and we were doing some composite. This is where that started to sort of become more. more and more popular.
Well, hold on. You said you got an opportunity to buy the lab, so you bought it from the dentist and he left? Or how does that work?
Yeah, well, the dentist had actually, when I started, I think he was still practicing, but he was knocking on a bit. And I think he actually retired when one of the other members of staff and myself got the opportunity to buy what was left of the lab. By then, we'd kind of introduced a smaller prosthetics department again.
Well, you were only catering to the dentist, so now you're opening up to more work and more dentists.
It was open to work from outside dentists as well. It wasn't just that particular practice. We did a fair bit of work for the local, the other dentists, the other practices locally. There was no postal work. It was all was all just local, within a driving distance, driving distance away.
You and how many people purchased it?
We sell from one other. Okay. Yeah, so there were two of us, we sort of. chipped in the money. It was 5000 pounds we paid for the lab, which is not a lot, which it was a no-brainer. The guy who was running it at the time, he wasn't the dentist, he was like an accountant. He ran all the practices, so the, and I think it was just a ball egg for him, you know, it was just, it was just a handy sincerely.
He just wanted to be done.
Yeah, I think he just wanted it out. I mean, the equipment itself was worth more than that, so it was just a no-brainer for me. I mean, I would have still been on minimum wage at the time, which was It was a 5 pound 50 an hour or something like that. It was quite a small amount. So I had nothing. I had nothing to lose. No doubt.
No.
So if it all went **** ** then I could go and get a job doing something else and probably get paid at least as much as what we're getting paid there. So it was a no, it was it wasn't even a risk for me, really, you know, it's No, I mean, yeah.
I mean, what do you do? Do you rebrand?
Yeah, we just renamed it. We just, we just our surnames again, a really, really creative decision. we just our surnames and that was it. we sort of just renamed it and just carried on as we were in the same place. Looking back, it was a deal we just, it was, it would have been crazy not to take up, so we did all right out of that. I mean, that lab's still going now, but I mean, I'm not there anymore, but that lab is still running now, so it's...
So how long did you 2 run it together?
I think it was 2008 when we bought the lab. So I would have been working, I would have been an employee from, it was February the 16th, 1994 when I started. That was my first day in the lab.
And then you bought it in 2008?
I think in 2007 or 2008. So yeah, So, I've been there, I've been there all that time, which is quite a long time ago. I didn't realise it was long as it was. Yeah, so we bought it then and kind of ran it at the same premises for a good few years, sort of staff kind of come and go. It was never a big lab. It was never a big lab, but maybe four or five was in there at one time.
Yeah, it's still a good size though.
It's probably bigger than, a lot of labs, but there's still quite, it's still classed as a small business, yeah. From the, we've actually moved premises. Let's see, we might have been there 10 years as under that, from being self-employed from when we bought the lab. But then we moved and then a few years after that's when I set up the current lab. I had a certain vision of what I wanted it to be and then the business partner ultimately had a different vision. And it's just what happens, I think, you know, at the end of the day. So we decided to.
Partnerships are hard.
Yeah, it's. It was okay, while it was okay, and then it wasn't when it wasn't, it's just how things happen. I'm not going to sort of, go into the ins and outs of that because it's not just my business, it's not just my, somebody else's business as well. So it's, but yeah, ultimately it's we decided to split and I set up the current lab. So that was the current lab is 2021 Christmas. Christmas 2021.
So wait, so you guys split and then you started your own laboratory?
Yep, from scratch. I didn't, we didn't split anything. I just got, you know, there was like a financial package if you like.
Sure.
I just, I just went and started from scratch again. Yeah.
Sweet. How did that go?
It's going all right. It's hard work. I'm not going to lie. You know, anybody who's wanting to be Self-employed and start from scratch. you've got to be ready for it to be really hard because it because it's I mean how many times I've sort of thought about jacking it all in and working in a supermarket or something. Not that there's anything bad working in a supermarket, but it's I think sometimes you'll be a lot less stress.
Yeah, no, that's like me and my ever longing to be a truck driver. it's like, I just don't want to take a phone call from a dentist. I don't want to hear about a lake case. I don't want to remake. I just want to be out there driving.
Yeah, I never think you've ever said that before, Elvis.
I have.
Oh my God. Wow.
It's not going to happen.
I know.
I'm driving, see those trucks, and I'm on a phone with a doctor getting at, and I'm like, oh. But anywho, when you opened your new lab, you didn't just open a traditional lab. You didn't get into fixed and all that, did you?
No, I opened a lab which was concentrated solely on thermoforming.
Yeah, what? Why? I mean, it's so unique to me that like mouth guards, like that's it. Yeah, it's fascinating. So where did this decision come from?
Yeah, it's not just sports guard. We do the sort of the whitening and the sort of the removable retainers, you know, various splints and stuff like that. So it's not just like sports. It's not just sports mouth guards.
So you get a lot of night guards, bike guards, all those kind of things.
Yeah, it was a sign of the job. I really found, I found it really satisfying. It was what I enjoyed most in the lab.
So you made yourself happy.
Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it was one of those things that when I first started in the lab, we barely did any thermoforming at all. There was very little, well, there was no whitening, there was no Essex type retainers or removal retainers. The Michigans and tanners were all hand waxed and then processed, invested like the traditional denture process. And there was the occasional sports guard, not many. The thing that we actually thermoformed when I first started in the lab in sort of mid-90s was special trays. They thermal form, but that was it. And even they stopped when the light cure material came.
Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah.
So this is pretty again. I'm dating myself to a particular. So yeah, I was there. I was there at the invention of light cured special trays. So even that disappeared with them when they came in and it was just the work which I enjoyed and I think. I kind of pushed more and more of these appliances. Even when I was an employee, we were kind of left to run it as if we were self-employed. That's that first lab. So we were in charge of sort of resetting the prices every year, which is it's crazy when you sort of look back really, you know, it's the upstairs, everybody got involved other than the monthly accounts, the guy who ran it. And so we were kind of left to really sort of push what we thought could work and cut out what wasn't, selling particularly well. And it just kind of, developed from that, just being able to sort of having almost like a free hand. So in one hand, the business, it wasn't particularly good in a way to work for, but in the other hand, it was you have the freedom to sort of try different things, which a lot of places wouldn't have allowed us to do with that. As long as we weren't teching ****** with sort of buying machines and materials, we were kind of left to our own devices really, and I think it kind of. It kind of worked all right, because that side sort of started to sort of get bigger and bigger. it was something I'd like to think I had to sort of say, I'm not going to say it was all me, but I had a big hand in developing that side, which sort of grew and grew. The retains came in, the whitening came in, splints came in, and yeah, you know, that's ultimately, that's kind of why I branched off doing.
So how do you build a specialty lab? I mean, were there a lot of specialty labs in England at that time, or were you kind of in a niche.
At the time, I wasn't aware of many labs doing this. When I set up on my own, I'd probably been online, I'd like an online, in the various sort of Facebook groups and what. So you start to sort of learn what else is out there. You kind of see that it's a wider world than the four walls of your own of your own laboratory, and I think it certainly opened my eyes seeing all these other people talking and kind of sharing ideas, and that's something I'd never been in the lab. It was something I'd never witnessed before because there's always sort of a bit backbiting about other people, labs, and it was one of those things that I kind of never understood it.
What, that nobody wanted to share?
You just, yeah, you just assumed it was the norm because I had no experience of anything else. You just assumed everybody was like that. But then you sort of, you sort of joined. I mean, it took me a while to get on Facebook. I only ended up joining because of work.
Sure.
And then, you start sort of seeing, noticing these groups popping, not popping up, they already existed, but you become more aware of these and you join a few and it's like, oh my God, there's all this sort of big wide world of all these different things which I didn't know about all these techniques and these materials, and it's It was a real eye-opener to me, and that's I think that's what helped me set up actually the current lab. it gave me that sort of confidence that if I needed help, not just not sort of financial help, but help with discussing something, because you could see people were sort of so willing to sort of help each other. It was just something I'd never witnessed before.
It's the community.
It's great.
Once you get out there, yeah.
Oh yeah, and it's just like I say, it was a real eye-opener. And I think that helped me push myself to sort of open the current lab and be able to sort of do what I want, how I want to work, who I want to work with.
It's brilliant.
Yeah, it's I mean, I know there's sort of social media, it can be a, you know, there's right **** holes around. But you have to sort of filter, if you filter them out, and then for the most part, it's all right. you keep playing for more.
Get rid of Elvis.
Oh, come on. But yeah, you sort of avoid and it's usually all right. You know, it's, you know, if people have been. doing what they do on, we've all seen it. There's certain, you see the same names pop up and you sort of try to avoid, ignore, scroll past, but for the most part, you can kind of filter out all the bulls***. It's for the most part, it's pretty good.
Yeah, I don't need people to be so negative to everything I post. Yeah, I know.
You do? Yes.
Every meme joke they take like, it's like, I'm being serious. I'm like, no, you're missing the point. Just whatever.
So you said that Chris does memes as well?
Yeah, you were doing them for a long while. I don't know if you're still doing them.
Yeah, I like.
Maybe not as much.
I do like sort of technic a bit, you know, and it's not it's not anybody in particular. It's like a situation or a conversation. Like I said, it's usually about something rather than and it's not it's never about someone. I'd be more likely to take the **** out myself. I would be out of somebody else, publicly anyway. Yeah, I'd never sort of create something to sort of target an individual, because that's just me. Now, even if somebody might be an ******* I'm not going to do that. It's just not, it's not. But yeah, there'll be like, there'll be sort of conversations and discussions or something, there'll be some regulations. And I don't mind sort of poking fun at stuff like that. You know, it's sort of one or two out there. And it's just, you know, sometimes I'll sit there, I'll just make a batch all in one go. but then it might be two months before I'll do it again, so you kind of need that inspiration. You need something to go off or something to be said.
No, I totally hear you.
I get you. But yeah, it's, yeah, I'd like to think I've got a pretty good sense of humour, both at sort of, you know, mocking myself as well as other. not people, but things.
That's important in life, sincerely.
Try not to take myself too seriously. I've got no issue with somebody else sort of poking in front of me and stuff like that, and it's just, yeah, I think everybody's fair game as long as you're not sort of two-person, you know, you don't get mean with it. I think, you know, it's good to have a laugh and a giggle sometimes, you know, because the jobs can be quite stressful, so you know, I think any sort of lightheartedness is.
Yeah.
It's a good thing. it helps sort of break up, break up the deck. Some things might go over other, sometimes it's funny in my head and I'm like sort of laughing to myself. It's like, you might put something out there and it's like, oh, I wonder if everybody else sort of thought the same. And you kind of second guess yourself. I think once it's out there, it's out there. I'm not taking some of it. Yeah. You know, it's a, as I said, you know, it's my only post. If I put some up, I'm, you know, it's me. I'm not going to, I'm not going to sort of Hide from it, if you know what I mean, but for the most part, it's not mean, it's not it's not mean-spirited, it's just, you know, can be a light-hearted bit of it can get a bit near the knuckle with sort of language or some of the content of the video or whatnot, but it's... For the most part, it's good humor.
Yeah. If you can't laugh at what we're doing, you're going to go insane.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, that's how I deal with half the stress that comes into this lab. But.
Yeah. I mean, a lot of people started in isolation. A lot of people work on their own or they're in small, small groups, you know, and it's I think stuff like that. Not just what I do, but obviously what you do. And there's another couple of pages popping up which which is sort of quite funny, which, it's like it's good for results to have a bit of a laugh at ourselves every now and again.
Yeah. Well, before we get too far, I want to talk about your actual guards you make. I mean, I guess you call them mouth guards. They're fantastic, man. I don't know how you do this. Everybody just needs to go to Instagram and look at these things because, you know, most labs offer a mouth guard and we have them here, but I offer like 6 colors. and a tie-dye and this, but you have words and images and I mean, they're just fantastic. What's your process? How do you, how do you do this?
Yeah, it's simple, like a simple explanation is that everything's, everything's layered, you know, everything's laminated. A graphic would have to be laminated in between. the color layer or the main layer, if you like, and then the clear layer basically over the top. So whatever you want in there, whether it be a word, whether it be an image or a pattern or, you know, it could have somebody's hair or anything which will fit in between. It's basically laminated in between the two layers. The tricky part is making it making something fit, you know, because you don't have a limited space to work with and you have to take into account the contours. Everybody's mouth is the same shape, the same size. There's sort of quite a bit to sort of take into account when somebody's asking for a certain thing. You know, say if somebody wants the name on and the name might be Christopher, but they've got a really narrow or small mouth. That's quite a lot of letters, yeah. So you kind of have to sort of think, how is that going to fit? The font you use, the style of lettering can make a big difference to how something looks. it's certain fonts just don't work because of the size and the shape, not just of the font, but of the person's mouth. It can be quite challenging at times and somebody, even the simple things, can be tricky just because of the space that you're allowed to work with.
So what do you, is it printed on just regular paper? Depends on the.
Graphic, there's, if you have a club logo or a team logo or something like that, has to be printed. You can't, you can't hand, well, I suppose you could hand paint that, but the work involved in that and it's probably not going to look like a proper logo, you know, that has to be that has to be printed and then applied and then laminate laminated over. Other things can be hand painted like effects depending on what the what was required. I have hand-painted stuff before. And there's like you can cut shapes, there's like machines, or you can cut it by hand. When I first started doing some of these letters and things, I actually cut things out by hand. With an exacto knife or something? Yeah, I think we'd call it a craft knife, but I think it's an exacto knife. But yeah, I think it's the same thing, like a real life, like a scalpel almost, like a really sharp.
Yeah, that'd take you forever though to do some of these things.
You've got to have a high level of focus, I'm sure.
Yeah, it would just, it just, it was just ridiculously long, and then you kind of discovered, sort of various machines that'll cut these things out for you, which is, and they're not, the grand scheme of things, they're not that expensive to buy. They're not that expensive to buy. Something like that was a good investment. And I still got the same one from almost 15 years ago now, still using the same machine. I think I paid about 250 quid for it at the time, so he doesn't owe me anything, and that saves me cutting everything out with an Exacto knife, yeah.
But looking at social media, I mean, I'm not a huge, what is it, MMA person, but it looks like you're quite popular in that like they know about you and order from you or.
Yeah, I've been, I'm not going to say lucky because I think you make your own look. You know, it's not, it's not hard work. It's been, I've been doing it for a long time. So I think just over the over, if you're out there, the more you're out there, the more people see, and the more eyes people tell the friends or the team members or the dentists will sort of be aware of things and they'll tell their work colleagues. And you know, it's just, it looks kind of naturally, it kind of, yeah. Does.
Conor McGregor have a have a night guard from you.
He's the one, sorry.
Conor McGregor.
No, I've not done that one. I don't know who's that. I don't know if it's somebody in the UK or something in the US has done that. That's not me. No, I've done stuff for some relatively well known athletes. I mean, depending on how much you're into certain sports, you know, some people are well known, some people, if you're not into it, if you're not into that particular sport or activity, then some of these names.
So it's kind of like jewelry, jewelry for the mouth. or for the night guard.
Yeah, it's that individuality. I think it does help with, not just for the sort of the famous, the elite athletes, the boxers, the MMA fighters, the rugby players, or whatnot. I think it's good for, to encourage kids to sort of wear a proper mouth guard. Yeah. They can have their own, even if it's just their own colour, you know, there's sort of 30 odd different colours to choose from, and then there's all the combinations of those colours. it's almost endless, what something could be. But the idea of having something personalized, even if it's just a color scheme or something simple like your name on, I think it does help with compliance with the younger kids. Yeah, getting to wear a proper mouth guard from an early age before they lose any teeth, you know, and it becomes a normal piece of kit. Rather than trying to sort of convince somebody who's 18, twenty-five or whatnot, or they've been doing the sport for 15 years already and never bothered with a proper one, it usually takes something to happen from to maybe think, Oh, I need to get something properly, otherwise I'm going to lose a tooth and it's going to cost me a minimum of hundreds of pounds to have it. Have it sorted out, so I think the idea of getting kids to sort of wear these things early on is good, and the personalisation just helps that, it's I mean, I'm not 100% sure what the practices charge, but as far as a lab fee goes, it's relatively. inexpensive compared to having a having a three-four year, having your anteriors replaced. It's trying to get the kids into it. It's a good thing.
Yeah, but you're underselling yourself, man. You're just like, put a name in it, put some colors. I mean, you have full logo, movie pictures. I mean, I see the Joker. I see things I can't even say on this podcast because apparently people are just putting whatever they want in there, but Dracula teeth. I mean, just some really, I mean, it just looks fantastic.
Yeah, it's good to have somebody else tell you what they want, because I mean, I'm, a middle-aged guy. What I think is cool is different to what somebody who's 18.
Oh, no, I get you.
You know what I mean? It's what I think, oh, yeah, that looks like that. And vice versa, you know, so I think to have somebody tell you specifically what they want, and then you have to sort of try and fathom out how they want, because sometimes it's just a description. There's no image, there's no photo or anything like that. It's just a description. So then you have to sort of try and think like a, or not think like an 18 year old, but you know, think what an 18 year old would think looks cool, you know, looks like, it's what they want.
It's got to be like when somebody gets a tattoo, you know, and it's like, hey, I want this. How do you get it to work in that spot? And what exactly will they like? Unless they just come with a picture, which I guess makes it easier.
Yeah, I mean, the more information you can get to start off with, I mean, some people come with, they'll have an image, they'll want it laying out in a particular way. They'll even have the name of the font sometimes, which makes it super easy. I don't have to sort of think. Unless I, you know, they'll choose something and I think it looks, there's just something about it which just don't look right, then I'll kind of show them before it's all sealed just to make sure it's what they want, then they can make the changes before then. That just kind of slowed the process up because you're back and forth with emails and whatnot, in that same time you could have finished it and sent it out. But yeah, I think it's good to just kind of have that, just double check before I seal it in, because once it's in, it's in, you can't take it out, you've got to start again. Yeah.
Do you charge more for this special? I mean, you must.
Yeah, we charge more for a a job with all singing, all dancing graphics on it, then we would do it for playing on. there is a price scale.
Good.
So yeah, it's we probably shouldn't check. We don't charge as much as what I'd like.
It's true in every lab.
Yeah. It's got to be realistic. You know, I want to be able to sort of work. I want it to sort of be affordable at the same time. But also at the same time, I don't want to be sort of. busting my *** sort of seven days a week for not a lot of money, so there's that fine balance. there's a scale for the different levels of work involved. Every job does the same thing, it's just how it looks, it's just the aesthetic. which is different.
Do you have a large staff or is it just you?
It's just me. I have some help with sort of packing and stuff like that. the non-technical jobs every now and again, if you like, something much. I'm not going to say anybody could do, but those jobs you don't have to sort of have any lab skills, if you like. But all the thermoforming, all that's done by me, I don't have it.
Wow.
So you do work seven days a week then, don't you?
Well, sometimes. I try not to. Sometimes I'll be late tonight. I've got things I need to do this weekend, but yeah, so I can't be in this weekend, so I will be late tonight. And that's the...
How many of these things are you making like a week? Hundreds.
It's not hundreds, no. I've never, I've never actually sort of sat in.
You just keep going.
No, this is typical dental lab business. We don't really sort of count these things. You just, you just kind of think, oh yeah, it'll work. We'll just work it out. If there's not enough, I'll do some more. You know, it's, yeah, it's something I've never kind of sat down and worked out if I'm honest.
Interesting. Just keep doing the ones that are in front of you.
I don't know if I want to sit down and work out because I'll either be like, oh, I need to do some more work or I'm working far too hard for that.
Yeah.
It's one of those things I maybe just leave unanswered.
Do you charge like more for all this intricate detail and the more that you add and the more specialty the guard is?
Yeah, there's, you know, like I was sort of saying with a different price scale. I mean, you can't just, it'd be difficult to charge based on each individual job.
Right.
Because some have, some in a particular price bracket, if you like, some will still be more work than others. I guess it's like composite work for a denture or layering ceramic. Sometimes there's more involved than others. It's not every job is the same. Sometimes you might have to spend a bit more time to get it how it should be. So we have a different price bracket, but there's in those In each bracket, there can still be quite like a fluctuation in how much is involved per job.
Got it. That makes sense. And it should.
I would charge 6 bucks a letter. Adds up.
Yeah, I guess if you've got along, yeah, I mean, Elvis, what's that? Is that, was that about 30, $30, is it? My message is not very good.
Yeah.
My full name would be quite a man and be what? Yeah, there you go.
What's the craziest thing someone's asked you to put on these things? Because like I said, there's a few things on here. I mean, I could say it, but I have to bleep out what I'm saying. But I mean, what's the craziest thing?
The craziest thing? I mean, like I said, there's lots of people that like certain words put on there. I've actually got that very request this week from a dental practice. So that's quite common. But the craziest thing?
I mean, there's one here that I imagine is, I don't know, but it says, I love mountain dudes. I'm guessing that was like a funny thing.
Yeah, I think, yeah, it's a jiu-jitsu, it's a jiu-jitsu thing that I think. I'm assuming it's a jujitsu thing. I don't know.
I was thinking opposite, actually. I was not even close to a jujitsu.
Sometimes when you're in the act, you want to protect your teeth.
Probably the craziest thing, it wasn't particularly difficult to do, but there's been a couple of images I've been asked to put on. a mouth guard. I'm not going to sort of get too descriptive.
Sure.
One was a holiday picture. It was basically a holiday snap that one guy had sent me and there's something happening on there which for whatever reason he wanted on the front of his mouth guard. So we did that. It was involved him and somebody else. I'm not going to go into it. I've got a photo of it, but I've never uploaded it. I don't know how well it'll go down to be honest with you. So that was pretty near the knuckle. And the other one, I think it might have even been the same gym. I don't know if it was the same guy. But there was an image and it was one, it wasn't illegal, but it was one image. Once I'd done it, he wanted a photo of it. I took a photo of it and then I deleted the photo. There was no way that was going to stay on my phone. jeez. So the photo is out there to this person at this gym. But yeah, that's probably been the craziest thing. And I'm not 100% sure why they wanted those things on, but hey, you know, it wasn't illegal what was happening. It was just. All right. That's awesome.
But you do. I mean, if somebody wanted something illegal, you would say no, right?
Of course. Oh, yeah. I would never break the law.
Yeah. Somebody wanted like a swastika or something.
You're like, yeah, there's certain things which, which is just now, it just won't happen.
Yeah.
There's certain things which are humorous and there's other things which just, no, it's just not going to happen.
Well, here's one that says tiny.
Yeah, if it's the truth, how could it be wrong?
Why would somebody want that?
That's true. That's actually got flashed up on, I think, on some Facebook post before. I think the post has been checked now and that image has been put up. It reads the text on the mouth guard and it's been flagged.
You got to love social media.
Yeah, some of these people we do sort of work for, there's a certain sense of humor there as well. And there's things which I'm, they'll ask me to put something, I've got no idea what it means, but it's obviously an inside joke. So yeah, as long as there's something which is not racist or going inside some sort of problem, then I'm not going to say anything goes, but you know, there's not much we wouldn't put on. If it was in, if it was in good humor, Yeah, of course.
Yeah. That's great, man. Chris, thank you so much, man. This is great. I knew you and your sports guards, but I didn't even know you worked in a, I don't want to say an actual lab, but a traditional lab. I thought you only did. That's fascinating, man. Yeah. Thank you.
The technicians tend to sort of specialize in a certain thing, don't they? They tend to sort of gravitate to one area of the job. There's probably not that, well, I'm not going to say not many. But there's I think folk do tend to move towards a particular thing more than something else, and melting pieces of plastic has just been just been mine, you know. It's yeah, it's yeah, so everything's everything's a fire hazard. No doubt. So, yeah, so maybe there's just an element of danger there. You know, it's you live life on the edge in a thermoforming lab, I guess.
You melt a beautiful piece of plastic, dude.
Thank you, mate.
Well, thank you so much, Chris. Again, thanks for coming on the podcast, and we look forward to seeing you possibly at IDS again next year.
Yeah, of course. We bumped into each other, didn't we? You was on the exit with all the superheroes. Yeah, you were on there. I came and said hi, and yeah.
It was brief, but yeah.
So it'd be nice to sort of get over there again. We'll see what I can sort out. But yeah, I'll definitely come and say hi if you guys are there as well. Awesome.
I hope so.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, sir, and have a good weekend.
Thanks for having us. Thank you.
I gotta say, special shout out to Elvis Deverick. That's how you pronounce it, correct? You were amazing at Labfest. You are like awesome on stage with your silver or no, actually your gold coat and pants. You make it so fun.
I appreciate that.
I really, really love the fact that you're awesome. So yeah.
Thank you.
So we can't go any more on this episode without acknowledging that. So all right.
I appreciate that.
Here we go. A huge thanks to Chris for coming on our podcast from starting out in a dental lab at 17 to building a business around your passion for thermoforming. You are proof that sometimes the best career path is the one you discover by getting your hands dirty and finding what you really enjoy. And those custom mouth guards, I love them! He wouldn't really say what they were, but you guys can use your imagination. They're a whole different level of creativity. And if you haven't seen Chris's work, check out his social media and take a look at what he's creating. You might never look at the mouth guard the same way again.
I mean, who doesn't want a mouth guard that says I love to mount dudes?
I said, that's all me. I'm in. I should say a dude, my dude.
There you go. Yes, I like to mount my dude. And now my voice is out in the internet saying that. So, uh-oh. All right, everybody, that's all we got for you. And of course, we'll talk to you next week.
Yeah, guys, it's almost November. Let's watch these scary movies and happy Halloween.
Because I was doing it the hard way.
That's what she said.
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.