Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Dental laboratory technicians often work closely with dentists, orthodontists, and other technicians, but they have limited contact with the patients. They work behind the scenes, using impressions or molds of a patient’s teeth or computer imaging software in order to get a perfect fit for the devices they create. They use materials such as plastics, wax, and ceramics to build the devices prescribed by the dentist or orthodontist. The top 10 percent earned over $57,520.
The course runs for 10 weeks and is offered 4 times a year at our locations. All of the training is online and clinical hands-on is on Saturdays. Check out our scheduled dates here.
We are known as the school to make the program affordable for all students. The price of the school depends on which program you can qualify for. Check our our pricing programs and compare our costs to other schools here.
What Does a Dental Lab Technician Do?
Dental lab technicians don’t typically work in a dental office, although some may! The typical dental lab technician works in dental laboratories. Here they fabricate restorative, corrective, and therapeutic devices for people’s mouths. These devices may replace a single tooth to an entire arch of the mouth or the entire mouth. It could be a simple cap or crown for an individual’s tooth, a retainer for a child, or even a set of dentures. The real challenge for a dental lab technician is to try to replicate the tooth are set of teeth exactly as they are in the patient’s mouth. This means all the perfections of the tooth and in some cases the imperfections! Unless of course, the patient is doing some kind of “make-over” and then the lab technician becomes more of an engineer creating an optical illusion with the restoration they are fabricating to best please their patient.
Dental Lab Work Environments
Many dental lab technicians work in small, privately owned labs, but others work for larger companies having hundreds of employees. Do you have what it takes to be a dental ab technician? Technicians are usually quiet by nature, although they definitely don’t have to be. They enjoy working indoors in small settings. Good candidates for employment in these labs should be comfortable using small instrumentation, be patient when it comes to working on small details, many love working with their hands and some have a knack for art.
Metal Waxer and Finisher
Metal Waxer and Finisher Technicians are highly motivated and creative artists. The job duties of a Wax and Metal Technician include performing diagnostic wax-up procedures and full-contour restorations. They get to complete the finishing of full gold crowns, bars, and full mouth cases. They get chances to solve problem cases and get to perform detailed instructions and procedures. You typically see a least a year of experience and require certifications.
Denture Technician
The duties of a denture technician involve working in a laboratory setting to fabricate dental prosthetics. In this career, they focus on the fabrication or the repair of dentures. Another name for someone in this specialty is a prosthodontics technician. Some duties include using plastics, metals, ceramics, and composite materials to create dentures with the help of a model and a mold of the patient’s mouth. They also create partial dentures that fasten onto existing teeth. They use welding, casting, and sanding tools, and responsibilities can include visualizing a design using computer-aided design (CAD) software.