As a local heat treater told me years ago, heat treating is great, but only do it when you need to. Because heat treating does not generally make the parts prettier or straighter.

Here's the conclusion to Debbie Aliya's series on a tooth overlay procedure.

On the subject of tooth damage, many of my teeth have gum-line grooves. A friend who is a retired dental technician insisted that gum-line grooves are a result of brushing horizontally and using an excessively hard toothbrush.

Looking closely at an object and noticing its features and details is a good way to increase our creative powers. Following up on our curiosity is a good way to build a solid foundation of knowledge. Studying natural objects in this way is an excellent entrance to the world of scientific facts.

After the X-ray seen in Figure 1 (see part 1), they put a little optical camera (pediatric size, for which I was grateful) in my mouth to obtain a 3-D digital model of the remaining tooth shape.

Last month, my right rear-lower molar broke. As shown in Figure 1, the fracture event resulted in a chipped condition. The red arrows show the boundary (edge) of the missing piece.

Maybe a half a dozen times in my life I have learned something that, in a minute, totally transformed and rearranged everything I thought I knew about a subject that I thought I had previously understood.

On a trip with so many highlights, it’s hard to pick only a few. But if pressured, I would give first prize to the A.E. Seaman Mineral Museum, which is part of Michigan Tech. I literally had to pry my feet from the floor and force myself to move on to the next exhibit. After three hours, I had only seen half of the items. We went back on the same $8 ticket the next day it was open. My colleague was very patient and enjoyed the benches, while I barely noticed my aching feet.

Last month, my right rear-lower molar broke. As shown in Figure 1, the fracture event resulted in a chipped condition.

One of my colleagues graduated from Michigan Technological University (MTU) in 1986 and had not been back since. He’s a mechanical engineer but has worked his entire career in the foundry industry. As an MTU alum, he gets invited to the school’s events, and that included a geology tour.