How It’s Made! | Colleyville Dentist

The secret to longevity of ANY dental restoration is an exquisite fit, and of course GOOD oral hygiene. But even someone with the very best toothbrush in the world, brushing 10 times a day, could not clean off the plaque around a crown that fits poorly.

Tooth brush bristles simply are too large to fit in the microscopic crevices created by crowns that don’t fit well. A gap can occur between your tooth and the restoration being placed on it if there isn’t absolute attention paid to this critical detail. Over time, bacteria will accumulate in such places, and new decay will spring up in the areas you can’t clean!

To ensure this does not happen for our patients, we use highly skilled ceramists who work under a microscope to perfect the fit of our restorations (crowns, veneers, etc)! Many offices will advertise a quick fix– Get your crown in one appointment!!! But in our experience, the time it takes to hand make a precision restoration for your tooth far outweighs something that may need to be redone in the near future.

Hand-crafted by Ceramic Experts

Our crowns are created by art majors, actual dental ceramic experts who use a microscope to create ultra-realistic, natural looking crowns. The attention to detail means that the seals are tight to protect against bacteria and the crown may last a lifetime.

1. Tooth is hand made in wax on an accurate model.

2. Blue wax is used under a microscope to perfect the seal.

3. Waxed tooth is then pressed with super strong new age lithium disilicate ceramics.

4. Crown is removed from the porcelain block, and finished to match the patients teeth. Color can be added to the tooth externally and glazed or cut back and internally layered with colored ceramics

Case #1 (Same crown as shown above but in the patient’s mouth)

This gentleman had a hairline fracture down the side of his upper left back tooth causing him a great deal of discomfort when he bit down on anything. Much like a broken bone needs to be stabilized with a cast, dentists use crowns to stabilize broken teeth. Because the crown fit so well, the pain totally resolved without the need of any other treatment! Read on to see why our crowns have such a precise fit!

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

Case #2

OLD RESTORATIONS (FRONT VIEW)

FINAL RESTORATIONS (FRONT VIEW)

OLD RESTORATIONS (SIDE VIEW)

FINAL RESTORATIONS (SIDE VIEW)

Traditionally when a crown or a veneer is needed a dentist will prepare a tooth, have a restoration made, and then insert it. However, typically no consideration is given to how much tooth really needs to be removed and the patient has no idea what the final product will look like prior to undertaking the procedure. Also, there is a tremendous difference in the quality of the laboratory the dentist chooses to use to make their restorations.

We believe the best restorations require proper planning, an excellent ceramist, and approval by the patient prior to beginning. Here is an example of how six failing restorations were replaced by new all ceramic crowns. The process involved taking impressions used to develop the new teeth in wax. This serves as a blue print to check the esthetics of the final result before starting and to verify the new crowns would work properly with her lower teeth. Once approved, the old dental work is removed and the teeth are modified appropriately just enough to allow room for the new restorations to fit. This ensures maximum retention of vital tooth structure and helps to keep the teeth healthy. Afterwords, the labs highly trained ceramists create the new crowns that take into consideration the patients desires for tooth length, position, and color. The final restorations are inserted and we are left with a very satisfied patient!