Denture Milling

[Jesse Zamarripa]

We have 4 or so mills ATM the biggest being the iMES-iCORE 550i (For titanium milling). We also have a roland, and 2 to other iMES mills also.

All great mills but I havent heard of these mills having denture capabilities. Its tough because you needs compatibility of both CAD/CAM to achieve this. Amann Girrbach can do this, price tag is 56k all in with training and installation. If you want more info PM me. Otherwise it seems you are pretty mill heavy and might want to wait till you can do with your existing mills.

 

[zero_zero]

I've tried experimenting with it, crazy workflow involves other CAD apps as well, not only Exo... teeth were cut from PMMA arranged in 4 sections (4-3-3-4),made a ~25mm disk from Lucitone for the base. The teeth were slightly sized up in Rhino, then subtracted from the base, this gave enough "cement space" for easy fitting. Cut the base on my DWX50 with a fast 3 axis cycle, should've done it with 5 axis since there were some slight undercuts on the mesial flanges. It took way longer to finish the milled base vs. conventionally packed one made of the same material. A better mill, stock, cutting strategy prolly could've improve upon it...I dunno. Did only one specimen to try...
The teeth fit well, but too loose...it turned out that I've miscalculated the cement gap, it ended up being double of what it was intended to be...

Bottom line, the proof of concept worked, the workflow can be streamlined and there are better materials to put it into profitable production if there's enough volume.
Not this time, for us...it only makes financial sense if its a Zr all-on-4 type hybrid denture. Like this one: Ti bar and Zr teeth done digitally, acrylic work the "old school" way...

 

[LuthorCorp]

I've tried experimenting with it, crazy workflow involves other CAD apps as well, not only Exo... teeth were cut from PMMA arranged in 4 sections (4-3-3-4),made a ~25mm disk from Lucitone for the base. The teeth were slightly sized up in Rhino, then subtracted from the base, this gave enough "cement space" for easy fitting. Cut the base on my DWX50 with a fast 3 axis cycle, should've done it with 5 axis since there were some slight undercuts on the mesial flanges. It took way longer to finish the milled base vs. conventionally packed one made of the same material. A better mill, stock, cutting strategy prolly could've improve upon it...I dunno. Did only one specimen to try...
The teeth fit well, but too loose...it turned out that I've miscalculated the cement gap, it ended up being double of what it was intended to be...

Bottom line, the proof of concept worked, the workflow can be streamlined and there are better materials to put it into profitable production if there's enough volume.
Not this time, for us...it only makes financial sense if its a Zr all-on-4 type hybrid denture. Like this one: Ti bar and Zr teeth done digitally, acrylic work the "old school" way...

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Looks nice! We know its possible we have a contact in the states that does it and they do it somewhat backwards to make it work, we have some ideas about how to use it in our system and hopefully they pan out. Ill definitely post something if I get any success.

 

[highscore]

This is actually how the Wieland/Ivoclar mill will work. You mill the tooth side of the denture, fit the teeth, and put it back in the mill to finish the tissue side. This allows the mill to "adjust" the intaglio of the tooth where it would protrude into the tissue.

Unfortunately we are not quite ready to put it out there yet. We can successfully mill a very good fitting denture against denture, but want to finalize other workflows and processes before getting it out into the wild. Latest I heard was early 2017.

I'd be worried about the loss of occlusal aligment and contact through milling one side at a time.

 

[araucaria]

This is actually how the Wieland/Ivoclar mill will work. You mill the tooth side of the denture, fit the teeth, and put it back in the mill to finish the tissue side. This allows the mill to "adjust" the intaglio of the tooth where it would protrude into the tissue.

Unfortunately we are not quite ready to put it out there yet. We can successfully mill a very good fitting denture against denture, but want to finalize other workflows and processes before getting it out into the wild. Latest I heard was early 2017.

Yep! saw this system demonstrated by lecture in London last week, looks very effective. I guess there'll be a big launch at IDS Cologne next Spring.

 

[araucaria]

In a few years time we'll be printing dentures. They're already being made in R&D, but materials need further testing, refinement, and regulatory approval, and hardware & software systems refined. It's coming!

 

[LuthorCorp]

In a few years time we'll be printing dentures. They're already being made in R&D, but materials need further testing, refinement, and regulatory approval, and hardware & software systems refined. It's coming!

No doubt! We have already printed a few dentures and we are doing R&D to refine them however we are limited to the printable material. Biosafe material was not primary focus of a lot of 3D printers so we are stuck waiting for better material to push our progress forward...

 

[Terry Whitty]

I'm not so sure about printing dentures.. well not in the short term anyway... the one big problem you have is the limitations of the methods and materials of printing as well as...

1. Approved biocompatibility in the long term.
2. Physical and mechanical properties the materials
3. Optical properties
4 Other stuff i did not think of at 11pm when i wrote this
5. Economics

All this is really hard for 3D printers at the moment...and I'm not sure about any quantum leaps in the near future as most suitable materials are photo polymers...
And that's probably their biggest limitation. ( anyone remember TRIAD Dentures...great idea... )

It's coming ...but maybe not as quick as people may think.....

 

[LuthorCorp]

I'm not so sure about printing dentures.. well not in the short term anyway... the one big problem you have is the limitations of the methods and materials of printing as well as...

1. Approved biocompatibility in the long term.
2. Physical and mechanical properties the materials
3. Optical properties
4 Other stuff i did not think of at 11pm when i wrote this
5. Economics

All this is really hard for 3D printers at the moment...and I'm not sure about any quantum leaps in the near future as most suitable materials are photo polymers...
And that's probably their biggest limitation. ( anyone remember TRIAD Dentures...great idea... )

It's coming ...but maybe not as quick as people may think.....

Hey Terry! Long time no talk haha,

Yeah denture printing is very limited, our printers compatibility is limited to 24h in mouth, so perhaps for a try in we are there but nothing long term. There are some printers like the FormLab2 that can accept a third party biocompatible material however the accuracy might not be as great as our printing options right now.

Milling I believe is going to be our primary use, while using the printing to create rapid try-ins. I heard that bio compatibility is in huge demand so here is to hoping that they push that to the front of their development.

There are a lot of variables still left to figure out and work around but at least its moving forward!

 

[Terry Whitty]

Hey there...yep been busy with other stuff.. but I'm around...you know i love 3D printing..it's awesome..use it everyday..have done for ages...
What i don't like is the bullcrap that goes with it especially from small pissy companies trying to sell DLP or SLA to the uninformed.

Anyway looking to the future always....

 

[Patrick Coon]

I'd be worried about the loss of occlusal aligment and contact through milling one side at a time.

No loss in alignment due to the process we have for it. There is instrumentation that was developed to ensure this.

Also, this is only needed if the teeth would protrude into the intaglio surface. If not, then it mills the entire denture base, then you place teeth.

 

[LuthorCorp]

Hey there...yep been busy with other stuff.. but I'm around...you know i love 3D printing..it's awesome..use it everyday..have done for ages...
What i don't like is the bullcrap that goes with it especially from small pissy companies trying to sell DLP or SLA to the uninformed.

Anyway looking to the future always....

Yeah they definitely gloss over a lot of stuff unless you know what your looking for... We are basically pushing our 3D printing to the max trying to digitalize as much as possible and see what else we can push out of the printers.

 

[Terry Whitty]

Yeah they definitely gloss over a lot of stuff unless you know what your looking for... We are basically pushing our 3D printing to the max trying to digitalize as much as possible and see what else we can push out of the printers.

Great...Im all for it.. As far as dental technology goes...Dental brains and machines...great combination.

No brains and machines.... garbage.

 

[LuthorCorp]

Great...Im all for it.. As far as dental technology goes...Dental brains and machines...great combination.

No brains and machines.... garbage.

Yeah they really make it pretty open to do a lot yourself if you just apply some knowledge haha