Follow-up to 3Shape Abutment/e.Max Combo

November 4, 2009

Earlier this week I detailed the method for using the 3Shape D700 scanner to manufacture a custom zirconia abutment and a pressable resin pattern – all from a single scan.  I remitted that scan on Monday, and we received the abutment and Perfactory resin pattern this morning.

I am very pleased with the custom abutment.  It appears to be an exact duplication of the on-screen design, and the fit of the interface is perfect.  As I explained in the previous post, there is a bug in the software that does not allow me to output the data for the full contour resin pattern to our in-house 3D Systems ProJet printer, so I had to have the milling center print the pattern using their Perfactory system.  I’m a little disappointed – the Perfactory pattern is short of the margins a good millimeter.  I’m fairly certain this has to do with some parameter settings within the software set-up, and I could easily fine tune those settings if I had control over the whole process.  However, for now we will have to settle for hand waxing the margins – not a big deal.

Here are some pics -

The abutment from the lingual (Notice the lingual margin is slightly supraginigival, like I stated in the previous post).

Here’s an incisal view -

And, with the Perfactory pattern in place  - you can clearly see the short margin on the buccal.

We’re going to refine the pattern and fix the margins; then we’ll press, stain and glaze a e.Max restoration using an LT ingot.  I will post pics of the final restoration sometime the early part of next week.

Note:  Please look for our ads in the upcoming editions of the Northern Virginia Dental Society newsletter for information and pricing on Impaks™ – our new flat fee packages including Implant Tissue Model, Implant Analog, Custom Abutment (titanium or zirconia), and your choice of final restoration – available on several platforms including Noble Replace Select, Nobel Active, Branemark, Biomet 3i Certain, Straumann Bone Level and Zimmer Screw-Vent.

Or, if you can’t wait, send me an email and I will shoot you a PDF file of the ad (Doctors Only!)

© 2009, Jeff Saylors. All rights reserved.