(no subject)

[so-low.livejournal.com]

Coming at you from 1989, I have two ads for things I'm sure have never shown up on vintage_ads before!






These are porcelain furnaces - near as I can tell, they're used in the creation of dental models and prosthesis. I guess we can categorize these ads under "oddly specific". The back of the ads broke down what they did, but to a dental layman like me, I really had no idea what they were talking about. Definitely for people in the biz. I just thought the machines were awfully cute. And orange.

I hope I can keep finding more stuff like this as I clean out our office file library. :)

Comments

[write-light.livejournal.com]

Why, that's the vacuum porcelain furnace I've been asking for! :D

[so-low.livejournal.com]

You can rest easy now!!

[superfan1.livejournal.com]

*lol*

I know right?

[1geek-queen.livejournal.com]

LOL

[ejia-arath03.livejournal.com]

I love how the first one says almost absolutely nothing about what they are if you don't already know.

Starts burnout automatically! No need to work twenty years in a dead-end job to feel burnt out, a push of the button will do!

Or possibly it means it'll press the power button on my PS2 for me whenever I want to play Burnout 3.

[diblik-goblin.livejournal.com]

Aww!! well well!! I know this things really well my dad is a dental prothesis maker so let me tell you this things are amazing they are really small and they turn the talc to porcelain!!! but they are very dangerous and stay on for many many hours lol, gonna show this to my dad :D

[kakaze.livejournal.com]

I would LOVE to have the 750 at the top just as an objet d'art. The industrial design on it is awesome.

[brother-lingle.livejournal.com]

Yes, those are furnaces for firing porcelain dental crowns. I worked in a dental lab for a while in the mid-90's, and it's a fascinating process.

Technicians apply a porcelain powder slurry to a metal base with brushes and other tools, and fire them in one of these. They build up the layers in stages with different shades and opacities of porcelain to mimic the layers of a real tooth. Then they have to shape the fired crowns with tiny drills, grinders, and buffers. Each one is made on a plaster model of the patient's mouth, and no two are exactly alike. It's an exacting, precise art that, if done incorrectly, will either fall out of your mouth or hurt when you chew.

Generally, the techs at my lab cranked them out by the dozens each day and didn't have much time to consider taking an artistic, exacting approach to it. The wages were terrible at that place, people were lucky if they made a couple bucks over minimum wage. You don't even want to know what the profit margin is on crowns and bridges.

[so-low.livejournal.com]

Awesome! Half the reason I wanted to post these here was to see if anyone knew about them. That sounds like so much hard work for so little money, though. What a shame.

[brother-lingle.livejournal.com]

I'm hesitant to say that the wages are bad throughout the entire industry, because I only worked in that one lab. One of the managers in my department had been doing that work for many years, and he told me that wages in small labs were generally better. I also imagine that a small lab would probably take more care with the presentation. You could really take it to a level of artistic perfection similar to the work a jeweler does if you were given the time and encouragement to do so. Glad I could help out!