The Little World

When I was training as a dental student we encountered something in our first two weeks at university – two weeks before any other students even started – that has remained with me ever since – the hanging motor. I’d never seen one before but the utility of it became immediately evident.

The motors came in a variety of sizes and powers but shared the common feature of a flexible driveshaft and universal slip-joint at the end. That joint could take straight or contra-angled handpieces which in their turn had standardised steel or diamond dental burrs. The C/A ones latched onto the smaller burrs while the straight ones just accepted a long shaft with a friction grip.

We used them to make dentures, drill practice cavities in plastic teeth and prepare equally amateurish holes in extracted teeth. They were not considered flexible or clean enough to use in the clinic on patients but I’m willing to bet a number of backyard dentists in Perth in the day – late 60’s – did make use of them. As well, we saw them at every jewellers and watchmaker’s shop.

You get good at something in 40 years and a lot of us could carve out some pretty complex stuff with the handpieces. I sold my two when the surgery went and more or less forgot about them for ten years  – until I started to do more modelling a year ago and saw the Ozito brand in Bunnings.

Ozito is a cheap house brand for them, sourced in China, but if you pick and choose you can get some pretty useful tools under the name. And when I saw this motor tool with accessory flexible shaft for under $ 50…well it would have been a crime not to get it, eh?

Arbor alternatives are supplied that can take Dremel or standard dental burs. I went round to one of the old dental supply places but found that the prices had climbed to astronomical heights, so now I just buy Dremel bits from Bunnings. It’s not as powerful , smooth, or well-built as a Kavo or Siemens unit but those cost $ 1500 at least. I can replace a hell of a lot of Ozitos for that price…

My chief bragging point today is making a block holder for a part that used to be an airbrush stand. Well-built, but totally wrong shape for holding air brushes and I thought it was going to be an entire waste. But look how well it holds the tapered end of the handpiece. I wedge it in there and have a fixed sanding disk for working on plastic or metal materials. An extra hand, if you will, And all for the cost of a drop of glue and a block of scrap wood.