Andy Timblin, 30

In less than six years at Bertram Dental, Neenah, WI—which has specialized in cast CoCr partials for 45 years—Andy Timblin has been instrumental in helping the laboratory convert its RPD production from analog to digital and expand its product offerings.

“Andy is almost closer to an engineer than a dental technician. He’s diligent and through hours and hours of work, he’s helped me develop the best methods for metal printing (SLM) RPDs and, more recently, surgical guides, ortho parts and All-on-Four thimble-style cases,” says Tim Bertram, Co-Owner.

Acknowledging that printing metal is more challenging than printing resin, Timblin says one of the biggest hurdles was figuring out the best settings ​for our SLM printers and ​coming up with a good all-around support strategy. “If the supports aren’t sufficient, the printed parts will ​warp. After a lot of trial and error, we’re getting great results in a...