Amos Dudley didn’t used to smile very much. For years he’d been self-conscious of his teeth and he avoided showing them as much as possible. But after deciding to use a 3D printer to make his own braces, He now most definitely has something to smile about.

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Amos, a 23-year-old Digital Design Student at New Jersey Institute of Technology, came up with the idea while researching braces on the internet. Realizing that a lot of them looked like something he could print, the student set out to put his idea to the test.

After extensively researching how to formulate teeth realignment calculations, Amos eventually made 12 sets of braces. And as you can see from the pictures below, it looks like his crazy idea has worked. The whole project cost less than $60, which is considerably less than the thousands he would have had to spend on orthodontist costs. But despite his success, Amos doesn’t plan to make a career out of it.

“I think there’s too much liability,” he told CNN. “I’m not interested in orthodontics. It was more of a hacker project than making a business out of this.”

More info: Amos Dudley (h/t: CNN)

UPDATE: Don’t try this at home without first consulting your dentist.

Digital Design Student Amos Dudley didn’t used to smile very much

“I wasn’t smiling, and it was because I was unhappy with my teeth,” he wrote on his blog

So after researching braces on the internet, he decided to make his own in a 3D printer

And as you can see from these before and after pictures, his clever experiment seems to have worked

Instead of spending thousands on dentist bills, Amos’s project cost him less than $60

“And, most importantly, I feel like I can freely smile again,” he wrote on his blog