Taking up dental work this summer

Darlington, Wisconsin is known for many things. One of them is the shark from the movie Jaws on Main Street in town. Darlington local, Ted Thuli has a knack for picking up odd and unusual collectables. The guys from the TV show American Pickers even visited him and his collection several years ago and bought his some of his "goodies".

As you can see the shark has a bench in it's mouth and is a photo op for many 4 wheelers visiting town on the Pecatonica trail as it runs right by. Over the years several of the sharks teeth have gone missing. I would guess it had something to do with alcohol in it's diet. A few months ago Ted contacted me and wanted to know if I could do the necessary dental work and bring the shark back to proper photographic status.   I said sure, I would give it a go. Here is how...

The remaining teeth will serve as molds to form the new teeth over. First the existing tooth is wrapped in Saran Wrap. This acts a the mold release and keeps the fiber glass resin from sticking to the pattern tooth.

The tooth is then wrapped with a layer of 6 oz fiberglass cloth which is held in place with pieces of self sticking fiberglass mesh drywall tape. The cloth is then coated with fiberglass resin. The process is then repeated so each new tooth is two layers thick.

After the resin has hardened the new tooth form is removed. Lucky for me there was one original of each tooth that need to be replaced.

Here you can see the new tooth removed and sitting next to the original.

Here is the lower jawbone that the new tooth will be mounted to.

I just sat the new tooth in place to get an idea of how it will look. Considerable time and effort will need to go into getting the replacement smoothed and finished. Then I will fiberglass each tooth in place on the jawbones.

Each tooth will be sanded smooth and then given several coats of Bondo auto body buddy to make the surface smooth.

So far I have 8 fiberglass replacements made and am working on smoothing each of them out for painting. 15 teeth need to be replaced. 

Keep watching as the project continues and I work to prefect my dental skills.