A Productive Visit to SCHEU
Andrea Johnson is Chair and a founding member of the charity Den-Tech, Orthodontic and maxillofacial laboratory manager at Montagu hospital, Mexborough and the current Chair of the Orthodontic Technicians Association (OTA).
We’re proud to be sponsoring her session at this year’s Dental Technology Conference, which takes place in Edinburgh on 27-28 September.
The session, titled ‘Under Pressure – Thermoforming Tips, Tricks and Advice’ will introduce a range of thermoforming techniques using SCHEU equipment and materials, which will be invaluable both for beginners and more experienced technicians alike.
In April 2019, Eurodontic had the privilege of arranging for Andrea to visit SCHEU’s HQ in Iserlohn, Germany.
Here’s what Andrea made of the visit…
‘SCHEU-DENTAL was founded in In 1926 and is still a family-run business. They develop very high quality dental products and services, including a large range of pressure-moulded appliances, sleep medicine and now 3D printing.
It was with this in mind that I embarked on this journey. I have a very well-loved, old and battered Biostar pressure moulding machine in my lab and quite frankly was looking forward to seeing first hand from the experts how this can be used to its maximum potential with the materials developed especially with it in mind.
I arrived in Iserlohn the evening before my scheduled day at SCHEU and was able to have a little wander around the town. It is a very lovely place and full of the character I have come to expect from the German towns I have visited. It has a very ‘olde world’ feel to it with cobbled streets and characteristic buildings cleverly mixed in with the new without spoiling the overall feel.
The following day was a real learning exercise. I was collected from my hotel in the morning by Martin Göllner who is SCHEU’s sales director. We drove the 10 minutes to the company where I was introduced to Martin’s colleague Antji who was my instructor for the day. I was very impressed by Martin and Antji’s English, it was certainly a huge amount better than my German and the hospitality of them both throughout the day was incredibly impressive.
I spent the day with Antji who is an excellent technician and a complete expert on all of Scheu’s products. We covered topics such as the pros and cons of pressure forming versus vacuum, model prep using BLUE-BLOKKER®/SIL-KITT/BIOPLAST® insulating, different retainer blanks and applications, DURASOFT® pd, bleaching trays and mouthguards. It was a very intense day but it was great to see how the company intends and recommends its products to be used to gain the maximum potential from them.
I have to say that I have definitely changed, and I believe, improved the techniques that I was already using and feel that the end products that I now produce are better and more durable than before.
If anyone gets the opportunity to visit this facility and attend one or more of their courses I would highly recommend it. In the meantime I hope to be able to use the skills and techniques I have learnt to show others too how they can achieve the best possible results from these materials.
Huge thanks to both Scheu and Eurodontic for your support and the opportunity.’
Don’t forget to book your place at the DPC Conference, to take part in Andrea’s workshop and of course visit the Eurodontic stand!
