Josh Jakson’s path into digital dentistry started long before he had a job title. He grew up around it. His father, a Polish immigrant, started the family’s dental laboratory in Buffalo, New York, about 30 years ago. Before that, Jakson’s grandfather had worked as an engineer in Poland and later in the U.S. automotive industry. That technical mindset helped shape the family business from the start.
“My dad’s interest in the industry was always about helping people smile,” Jakson told 3DPrint.com. “But our family also came from an engineering background, so dentistry in our house was always connected to manufacturing, materials, and understanding how things were actually made. That really became the foundation of our dental lab from the beginning.”
Joshua Jakson.
Before starting the lab, Jakson’s father originally wanted to become a dentist. But his grandfather encouraged him to first learn the technical side of the industry and understand how dental prosthetics were actually made. It was that decision that eventually shaped the future of the family business.
It led to Evolution Dental Solutions, a Buffalo-based dental lab that now works with crowns, bridges, implants, dentures, and other restorations, using digital tools and 3D printing. Jakson is Chief Case Designer at Evolution Dental Solutions, and President of Evolve Technology, the company’s sister business focused on digital dentistry equipment and workflows.
Over time, the company became heavily involved in digital dentures, CAD/CAM design, scanning workflows, and later 3D printing. According to Jakson, that evolution eventually turned one of dentistry’s most labor-intensive products into one of additive manufacturing’s clearest real-world production applications.
Dentures, he said, became the clearest example of how digital workflows could fundamentally change the economics and scalability of a dental lab.
“For years, denture production was one of the most labor-heavy parts of the dental lab. It required waxing, investing, finishing, carving, correcting mistakes, and a long chain of manual steps. Dentures were always a thorn in our side because they required a ton of hand-touch processing. But that is changing. Today, our team uses digital scans, CAD workflows, and 3D printing to turn denture production into something much closer to a repeatable manufacturing process,” he explained. “We can really make it a much more scalable process. We take the scans and design the CAD using a clear, chronological workflow. We can then go into processing that on a 3D printer.”
Evolution Dental Solutions uses 3D Systems’ NextDent 300 printer and NextDent materials to produce dentures. And according to a case study he shared during the interview, the lab produces about 20 to 30 dentures per day and plans to scale up by adding another machine.
NextDent 300 printer. Image courtesy of 3D Systems.
Jakson said the biggest change is not just that the printer makes the part. The workflow removes many of the old manual steps.
“With older 3D printed dentures, labs often still had to print a pink base, print or use separate teeth, and then glue the parts together. That was still better than traditional analog processing, but it was not fully scalable. Multi-material printing changes that. With newer 3D printing technology, like the multi-jetting technology provided by 3D Systems, we’re able to make that even more scalable than the last decade in 3D printing,” Jakson stated.
He described the process as moving closer to batch production. Instead of one technician spending hours on a single denture, a small team can handle many more arches.
“Three technicians can handle a hundred arches, whereas three technicians back in the day could probably only handle about 20. It increases our manufacturing capability by nearly 10 times that of a laboratory, allowing us to drive down the cost of these prosthetics. That is the larger point: dental is not a one-off application. It is a daily production.”
Patients need dentures, crowns, implants, veneers, and other restorations every day. Each one is custom, but the workflow can be repeated. That makes dentistry one of the clearest examples of where 3D printing can work as real manufacturing. It also creates new value for patients, so if someone loses a denture, Jakson said, the lab can simply reproduce it from the digital file.
“If a patient loses a denture nowadays, we could simply press a button and have that product made again. For older patients, especially those in nursing homes, that matters. Repeating the full dental appointment and denture-making process can be difficult or unrealistic. A faster replacement can directly affect nutrition, comfort, and quality of life.”
But Jakson says the technology still depends heavily on good data and human judgment. The final part may come off the printer with very little finishing needed, but the quality of the result begins much earlier. Scan data, bite records, and jaw positioning are critical.
“It’s not just a matter of surface-level acquisition. It’s about recording the bite. A bad bite record can change everything. Just a small error in the back of the mouth can become a much bigger problem in the front because of how the jaw moves. If you take that bite record and it’s one degree off over here, it could be three degrees in the anterior zone,” he noted. “That can lead to someone looking like they have buck teeth or a very nice smile at the end of the day. That is why human judgment still matters.”
Finished 3D printed denture being polished before final delivery.
Software can flag problems. AI tools are starting to help with bite generation and scan evaluation. But Jakson tells us there is still a line between automation and clinical responsibility.
“There is still a big part in the process where a human needs to evaluate that. Digital dentistry is not simply about replacing technicians with machines. It’s about changing the role technicians play inside the workflow.”
In fact, in Jakson’s lab, different people bring different skills. Some need dental knowledge. Some need CAD and engineering knowledge. Others need hands-on 3D printing experience. He said some of the people running his printers came from hobbyist 3D printing backgrounds.
“The people who run my 3D printers were hobbyist 3D printers. They were very involved in working with different types of maker boxes and all sorts of different hobby-level 3D printers.”
That transition is also changing the dental lab business itself. According to Jakson, there are far fewer labs today than there were years ago, even as demand for dentures and restorations keeps growing. Smaller local labs, he said, have had a hard time competing with bigger digital labs.
“Our business used to be 80% to 90% local. Now it’s the reverse. We’re 80% to 90% national and only 10% to 20% local. That is where additive manufacturing becomes more than a tool. It becomes part of a larger change in how dental labs operate.”
Freshly printed dentures awaiting post-processing.
Evolution Dental Solutions is not only looking at polymer denture printing. Jakson said the company is also exploring ceramic 3D printing, including zirconia and lithium disilicate, and is watching for more affordable metal additive manufacturing systems for chrome cobalt and titanium restorations. But for now, dentures are one of the clearest examples of what is already working.
For Jakson, “dental matters to 3D printing because it brings together materials, scanning, design, and repeatable production in one workflow. It lets us explore new materials. It allows us to scale at the level that we need, and it allows us to participate in the advancements in acquisition and design.”
Dental labs may already be one of the clearest examples of scalable 3D printing in the real world. Every day, they are producing custom parts for real patients using digital workflows and additive manufacturing.
Images courtesy of Evolution Dental Solutions unless otherwise noted
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