Implant Abutment Finishes

[brayks]

So if I understand correctly, this is straight off the mill. You still polish the collar sub-marginal?

Can we get a pic of one that's completely done and all polished up?

Nice looking abutments!

Yes indeed, right off the mill Kent.

The images are ones that our Prosthodontist/lab-owner customers supplied about a month ago or so (in an email with subject: HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY BTW.) so that particular unit is in a customers mouth at this point.

I will however reach out to him and see if you can do some pic's of other cases both off the mill and polished up.

 

[KentPWalton]

This is the milling time for our 4.5 interface abutment plus about 2 mins on the bench to polish the sub-marginal area.

5:55 cycle time for this one.












This is the milling time for our 5.7 interface abutment plus about 2 mins on the bench to polish the sub-marginal area.

5:46 cycle time for this one.

Times vary on size of actual abutment. Some more, some less. I ran these this morning.

Took me longer to design and set them up in SUM3D than to actually mill and polish.

Sorry for the poor picture quality from my phone. I'll try to get some better ones with my good camera

maybe tomorrow.

I'm really happy with the finish.


Please let me know what you guys think about this finish.

 

[KentPWalton]

Here they are after I anodized them just playing around to see how they looked. I thought they ended up looking really good!

 

[eyeloveteeth]

2 color anodizing would be a good thing to do - we do that now.

To be honest, the way the margin looks "chipped" - as in it's not a straight/smooth sharp line....is a bit off setting for us. We could fix it, but then we would have to reannodize anyway.

do you design any of your abutments with an additional flat?

 

[KentPWalton]

2 color anodizing would be a good thing to do - we do that now.

To be honest, the way the margin looks "chipped" - as in it's not a straight/smooth sharp line....is a bit off setting for us. We could fix it, but then we would have to reannodize anyway.

do you design any of your abutments with an additional flat?

So you would prefer a smoother finish around the margin?

An additional flat? What do you mean? Retention groove?

Yeah. We can mill out retention grooves. Just didn't on this one.

 

[sidesh0wb0b]

just a milled or hand cut (carbide finished) surface works well.
sandblasting does cause a darker surface area.

also, antirotational groove is a must on all abutments, as well as i try to incorporate a flat wall (usually 3rd plane reduction) too.

 

[brayks]

I've never been accused as the "sharpest knife in the drawer" but I'm still not convinced on the necessity of anodization. Our customers doing abutments (doctors, labs and milling centers) have never been asked or required to anodize their abutments.

As near as I can recall, fresh cut Ti immediately forms an oxide layer (measured in Angstroms). The oxide layer is "self-protecting". In regular atmosphere, is simply stays there and doesn't grow or thicken.
However when placed in environments with electrical current, or heat, the oxide layer can be modified (turn different colors, thicken etc.).

So, although technically possible, does the environment presented to Ti abutments in the mouth produce enough heat and/or electrical current to cause this change and if so cause discoloration in gum tissue? I'm not sure as we see the current accepted practices and expectations are simply polished sub-marginal areas.

Having said that, "Googling" "Ti oxide layer" yields some interesting search results: some measured Ti Oxide thicknesses in nano meters.

Looks like I need to be educated here. LOL, no surprise there!

 

[DMC]

Most Implant companies use anodizing to color-code the size of platform.

Tons of anodizing going on with no ill effects for decades.

 

[brayks]

Most Implant companies use anodizing to color-code the size of platform.

Tons of anodizing going on with no ill effects for decades.

Of course ***, understood. My point was more towards; is it really necessary from an aesthetic or health point of view?

 

[rkm rdt]

Not if you're using an opacious cement however it does look cool.

I just did a hybrid with an anodized ti base.

 

[DMC]

Of course ***, understood. My point was more towards; is it really necessary from an aesthetic or health point of view?

Is anything really necessary?

Marketing tactic. Take it or leave it.

I'll offer a Cheeseburger with Zr on top if it sells.

I'll even anodize the Cheese if someone would buy it. LOL

 

[cadfan]

Of course ***, understood. My point was more towards; is it really necessary from an aesthetic or health point of view?

If you don't use a scaler to remove the cement rest and if its forbidden to use teeth brush versus some specially tooth paste. sometimes it looks like a dalmatiner . Nice dogs !!! over 2 mm gingiva support its out of reach for the human eye their is only a difference in measuring

 

[KentPWalton]

just a milled or hand cut (carbide finished) surface works well.
sandblasting does cause a darker surface area.

also, antirotational groove is a must on all abutments, as well as i try to incorporate a flat wall (usually 3rd plane reduction) too.

I usually design the abutments with a flat side to them for anti rotation.

For some reason I was playing with the robotic style abutments this time

and it ended up being a little round on the 5.7, but the 4.5 does have flat sides.

 

[eyeloveteeth]

So you would prefer a smoother finish around the margin?

An additional flat? What do you mean? Retention groove?

Yeah. We can mill out retention grooves. Just didn't on this one.

yeah smoother finish around margin would be nice. - If you had the ability to mill M-D retention groves up the axial wall that would be cool -

but a rotational flat...usually lingualized - is a big thing our customers ask for.

 

[KentPWalton]

yeah smoother finish around margin would be nice. - If you had the ability to mill M-D retention groves up the axial wall that would be cool -

but a rotational flat...usually lingualized - is a big thing our customers ask for.

I got ya. Well, right now we won't be designing any abutments. We will just be milling customer's designs.

 

[brayks]

Just for fun: here are some shots of abutments we did during our template development. These mid-developments samples, though pretty nice (I think) were not as good as the final product.

These are straight off the mill.

In the pic's below check out the quality of the finish, seating area, margin sharpness and blend to the interface.

I hate to blow my own horn, and I could be wrong on this, but I don't recall seeing very many (if any) out-of-the-box solutions our there that can handle these types of cases with the quality we can do it with.

The last pic is a "theirs vs ours" thing; we're the one on the left...

I also added some content to our gallery page that highlights some of the "severe" abutment design cases our templates can handle. Check it out; http://axsysdental.com/Axsys_Gallery.html

 

[KentPWalton]

Just for fun: here are some shots of abutments we did during our template development. These mid-developments samples, though pretty nice (I think) were not as good as the final product.

These are straight off the mill.

In the pic's below check out the quality of the finish, seating area, margin sharpness and blend to the interface.

I hate to blow my own horn, and I could be wrong on this, but I don't recall seeing very many (if any) out-of-the-box solutions our there that can handle these types of cases with the quality we can do it with.

The last pic is a "theirs vs ours" thing; we're the one on the left...

I also added some content to our gallery page that highlights some of the "severe" abutment design cases our templates can handle. Check it out; http://axsysdental.com/Axsys_Gallery.html

Just curious to what your milling times were on these.

They look wonderful in my opinion.

How are you converting the .STL's into solid forms to use in the Dentmill?

It looks like the design software for the abutments didn't have the inner limits set on it.

Your file was smaller than the actual emergence profile of the blank. May need to edit the

library to the proper emergence to not get that lip like on the lower right one.

 

[brayks]

Just curious to what your milling times were on these.

They look wonderful in my opinion.

How are you converting the .STL's into solid forms to use in the Dentmill?

It looks like the design software for the abutments didn't have the inner limits set on it.

Your file was smaller than the actual emergence profile of the blank. May need to edit the

library to the proper emergence to not get that lip like on the lower right one.

Hi Kent,
Thanks.

As I mentioned these were some developmental units we did a while ago so I am not too sure of the milling times on this particular unit. Our milling times typically run in the 20-25 minute range or so depending of course on unit size/characteristics.

No conversions are being done to solid form!

We machine directly from the STL that is input into DentMILL. I discussed this (I think) in an earlier post (different thread/topic) how all toolpath algorithms for machining tessellated files are not created equal and how DentMILL's algorithms (based on their PowerMILL product) really shine in this area. What you are seeing is first hand results of this capability.

The "other" abutment in the last pic was not done by us but was supplied to us for comparison (there's really no comparison but it makes the point I think). I agree; library/blank issues abound. Pretty typical for stock NT-Libraries; ours are heavily modified and we of course supply them with our machine. These modifications help us (amount other things) to facilitate more robust designs and to provide the nice blend to the interface. BTW, our latest templates provide and even better blend with very, very little stock left on the taper...

Best
Steve

 

[KentPWalton]

That's a nice finish from an STL file. I thought you guys were milling with solid files. That is some impressive software. Thanks for sharing!