So there are two rooms for me to start drilling in. The first in the “Pre-clin”. It has the handpiece connections for me to practice along with the attachments for the manikin/typodont. The other location is the “Sim-clin” which not only has the handpiece and manikin attachments, but it also has running water.
Now, running water is a huge game changer when it comes to working on a composite preparation. Unfortunately, I very rarely have access to the Sim-clin, so I am left with only the pre-clin. Therefore, I decided to experiment to see if I can somehow get running water in the pre-clin.
So the first idea was to somehow get water into the handpiece itself.

However, this is not easy since the bottom attachment doesn’t have any room for me to inject water.
Instead, I was inspired to use a water pump to squirt water into the manikin/typodont’s mouth.

I was able to get one from Petco (which is normally used for fish tanks) and then I hooked it up to a tube (using materials from Home Depot). I then put it all into a bucket of water.

When I turned the pump on, I got running water!

However, I needed the water to be “squired” out like a super-soaker, not a faucet. So I used a clamp to decrease the diameter of the tube at the output end.

I then simply pointed the tube at the tooth that I am working on. Yes, this does mean that the water is always running, even if the handpiece is not running. Also, this means I may have to use my other hand to redirect the water which can be very annoying; especially if I am doing indirect vision for a tooth preparation.
Thankfully, the typodont already has a drainage hole, so I simply connected another tube to it…

and then had it drain to another bucket.

For the most part, this “works”. Here are some of the benefits of doing this:
- As I am drilling, all the debris does get washed out
- The visual effect that water has on the tooth is very similar to what is happening in the sim-clin; meaning I will get the same kind of refraction and translucency that throw me off when I work with water
There are lots of obvious issues right now (and I am open to suggestions to fix them):
- Since the water tube is completely separate from the hand piece, I would have to use another hand in order to direct it. As mentioned eairler, I can’t do this well if I am working on maxillary teeth. I tried to mount the tube on top of the hand piece, but that actually blocked my view of the tooth so much that it was completely useless.
- There is no way to stop it without either using clamps or simply unplugging the machine. It would be nice to make a button of some kind that would allow me to stop the water when I don’t need it.
I’ll post any updates if I solve any issues.























