Amos Dudley (who also has a name that belongs in a Harry Potter novel) is a 23-year-old digital design student in New Jersey with a pretty common problem – he hates his crooked teeth. He reportedly had braces as a teenager but didn’t do his part to maintain the fix (um, hello, who among us wore our retainer the way we were supposed to – amirite?), and, now that he’s a poor college student, he can’t afford orthodontia (Who can?).
He might not have money, but Dudley realized that maybe he had something better – access to a state of the art 3D printer.
He used the printer to make “invisible” aligners – the ones that cost thousands at the orthodontist – except he did it for less than $60.
Of course, it wasn’t as simple as popping calculations into a machine and watching it spit out your product (why can’t it ever be that simple?). First he had to take a mould of his teeth, just like a trained orthodontist would have done.
Photo Credit: Amos Dudley
Next, he had to plan for how he wanted his teeth to travel back into a straight line – basically, he needed them to move, but not bump into each other in the process. Which sounds pretty tricky. But Dudley, he’s smart (and he has cool software on his side):
Photo Credit: Amos Dudley
“…it was just a matter of animating them into their correct positions. I measured the total distance of travel, and divided it by the maximum recommended distance a tooth can travel per aligner. Each frame of animation was naked into a new STL model.”
Now, Dudley had 12 3D printed aligners. Done, right?
Not so much.
Apparently the aligners printed by the machine would not only be super uncomfortable, but the plastic is porous and unsuitable for wear in the human mouth. Since aligners have to stay in your mouth 24/7, we don’t want to use a plastic that breaks down into toxic chemicals. Preferably.
According to these before and after photos, Dudley’s little experiment is working…but that doesn’t mean he recommends DIY dental work for everyone, and he’s definitely not planning on starting a side business making aligners for friends.
Photo Credit: Amos Dudley
There are, as practicing orthodontist Brent Larson pointed out, multiple concerns that should be addressed along with crookedness.
“I’m impressed with the way he was able to use the scanning and printing technology that he had available to engineer and produce his own aligners, but a little frightened that he would actually use them to treat himself without a professional assessment of the health and function of the teeth… specific areas of tooth wear visible that indicate unbalanced function and possible nighttime grinding.”
Dudley himself isn’t saying that people should take to doing their own dental work in order to save a few bucks. That said, he does believe that people are “frustrated with the state of the orthodontic appliance industry” and that there’s “not enough competition, and prices are very high.”
I don’t think anyone can argue with that, and perhaps in the future, when 3D printers proliferate, we’ll all have access to better options.
h/t: Science Alert
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