My LMT Challenge crown..

[SmileBaker]

Yes, I did attend the competition this year..

however, LMT crown challenge examiner did not select my crown..

What they said was, my crown did not fit well on the master die.. LOL

If they do the competition next year, I will check the adaptation first.

[Travis]

Did you do all the work on the case yourself or did you only do the porcelain work on it?

[SmileBaker]

Since I'm not a lab owner.. I only did porcelain work. At that time we had 7 ceramists and all of them wanted to join that competition. so we had small tornament..=)
we poured 7 different model and made 7 pfm coppings.. I think that caused distortion
and made my crown poor adaptaion onto master die.. anyway I and another senior
ceramist was on final and owner chose my crown.. It was fun.. =)

[TheLabGuy]

Dear smilebaker (paul kim),
I like your crown. What I liked about it: The anatomy was built into the crown, not finished in; You used internal staining instead of surface staining which gives the crown so much more depth/chroma feel to it; The translucency (incisal) looks very natural and blends in with the dentin (body) very well. Overall, superb job.
If I was to critique it, I would only suggest not using white stone (use buff) to do your model work on, the metal collar could be smaller (make these as thin as possible), and the dissectional groove on the mesial aspect goes over the mesial marginal ridge in two different places, the cusp of carabelli could of been placed more to the occlusal. Now I was nick picking here, because this is an absolutely beautiful crown and took me a few looks at this to nick pick it, but I hate when lab techs take a look at my crown and say, "wow, nice job" and leave it at that, I always preferred someone to nick pick it. Now all my suggestions were just personal opinions, and that's that, nothing more, I'd be VERY pleased to have that crown you made in my mouth, be proud of yourself.

[SmileBaker]

Thanks Rob, I totally agree about your saying about "Nick picking" I guess you and I have one in common =P, criticising is important, both criticises & receiving criticises,
I appriciate your critic and thanks for taking your valuable time for my crown. =)

[alquir]

SmileBaker you're in the line, your job is very nice, I tink that you introduce a presentation step by step for the forum how you build up, I think your technique is inpeccable, and you have the ability, not everyone get, congratulations

[clearH2O]

Hi SmileBaker
Your picture is full of life like. I would like to ask you about photography 's subject. How to do it? what camera system have you use? I plan to take classes in photography to improve my love to work with porcelain.

many thanks
ClearH2O

[SmileBaker]

Hi ClearH2O
My picture above was taken with nikon D-200 with 105 Macro lenz and with Ring flash.. That was from my old boss's system.. Right now I'm using Olympus E-500
with 35 macro lens and without ringflash but using bright continuous light source (about 5000k color temperature) since I often take picture by myself during work, I need to have close range macro lens.. so I chose 35 macro lens. however, Olympus 500E body has no image stabilization.. it's hard to take picture without blurring..
If I have money, I will go towards nikon or cannon DSLR with above 10 mega pixels..
with twin flash and 105 macro.. there are lots of things to learn about taking good pictures.. I'm also learning.. I hope this helps..

P.s : If u want to get good results.. put your F stop as high as possible (above 14 is recommended) and exposure about 150 which is depends on your light source.. and use a good Tripods.. to make your crown's line angle more visible use 2 different light source.. about 45 degree each.. avoid reflection directly from the object.

Sorry for poor response

[clearH2O]

Hi Bumsuk(Paul)
You are very kind. I keep your advise in mind.

thanks

ClearH2O