April 12, 2010
Operating theatre, that is.
What?
PFTs!
Huh?
Porcelain-fused-to-Titanium Crowns!
One of the major reasons we purchased our Pro 5000 was to have the ability to mill titanium copings, frameworks and eventually – custom implant abutments. We’ve been working with a few clients fine tuning the milling parameters for a while, and I think we’ve just about nailed it. With gold climbing to almost $1200/oz, Ti may just become your material of choice.
I will be visiting B&D’s facility in Salt Lake City at the end of this week with the intention of gaining as much knowledge as I can regarding the milling process; work flows; ceramic application, etc… I’m hopeful that upon my return we will begin offering PFTs and FCTs (All Metal Full Contour Titanium Crowns) to all of our clientele beginning May 1st.
Watch the Web Specials space on that day for more information.
April 8, 2010
We were contacted yesterday by a representative from Keystone Dental. They were looking to establish a relationship with a lab that could offer custom milled abutment solutions for their Prima Implant interface. Given our experience with 3Shape’s abutment module, it seemed like a good fit.
Consequently, I’m pleased to announce we will be one of the first labs in the US to provide our clients our line of ImPak Implant Abutments for the Prima interface in all three sizes – SD, RD and WD. The fee structure for these abutments remains the same as for the other interfaces we already offer.
April 6, 2010
We’ve had the ability to do Lava abutments – a zirconia abutment head luted to a milled titanium insert – for some time, now. Of course, that involved waxing the zirconia portion of the abutment; scanning the titanium insert to define the inner aspect of the zirconia, and scanning the wax up to define the final contours of the abutment head. Once the zirconia was milled and sintered, the abutment was complete by using RelyX to cement the zirconia to the titanium.
Now, we’re doing the same thing using 3Shape CAD/CAM technology to design the zirconia over a virtual representation of the titanium insert. Again, the abutment head is milled and luted to the insert with RelyX.
My question is – Why can’t I do the same the thing with titanium? If its okay to lute zirconia to titanium, why wouldn’t it be okay to design and mill the abutment head from titanium and then lute it to the titanium insert? I have not seen this in any other literature. Its a very cost effective approach for any lab that has the ability to mill titanium (like us!).
I believe I will call such abutments Ti²© Abutments.
March 25, 2010
with this post, but…
Just received the latest issue of cerec doctors.com magazin (Q1 2010).
An entire magazine devoted to Cerec, and there’s only on post-op picture of a true Cerec milled restoration? And that is one ugly-ass little modl onlay on a bicuspid that looks - how shall I put this? – rudimentary, at best.
Really? If you’re going to promote this gizmo, don’t you think you would have a few “gee-whiz” photos of completed cases? C’mon Scottsdale Center for Advanced Dentistry – you have to do better!!!
March 24, 2010
Here’s a case on which we are fabricating a custom cast abutment featuring a Biomet 3i Certain Implant. Just for fun, I grabbed the impression and had a duplicate model made so I could make a shaded ZBrid Abutment and a Full Contour Zirconia restoration. Above is an image of the Titanium Insert screwed into the implant replica. I removed the tissue from the model so you can see quality of the machined interface.
Here’s the Zirconia Abutment Head which was designed using 3Shape’s Abutment Software, and milled on our Origin Pro 5000 – its been shaded, sintered and cemented to the titanium insert using RelyX Unicem. This type of abutment couples the esthetic advantages of shaded zirconia with the fit of a machined titanium interface, and features a titanium screw seat which eliminates the potential for the torquing of the screw to fracture the abutment. (Note – we chose to fabricate this abutment with 4.1 diameter insert as the client had requested platform switching.)
The abutment seated on the model with the tissue element in place.
And the FCZ in place.
Again, the FCZ is designed using 3Shape, and milled on the Pro 5000. The cool thing about this is I only scanned the case once. The abutment design and final contours of the crown were completed at the same time; the files were split and milled separately. The crown and abutment are both fabricated from the same material – the relative esthetics of the case won’t suffer should the patient suffer any future tissue resorption.
