Looking to add a wet mill to our lab

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Brett Hansen CDT

Brett Hansen CDT

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We have been milling wax and pressing emax for about a decade now. We have an Ivoclar PM7. We aren't interested in trying to mill wet and dry in the same mill so we are looking at purchasing a mill devoted to wet milling. I have a quote on a Roland DWX-42W-KST 4 Axis mill from Straumann. This mill would enable us to mill Neodent abutments in addition to emax. My rep also told me that we may be able to mill Straumann abutments begining in 2025(I'm not counting on this).

I guess I would just like some feedback from anyone who has gone down a similar road that we are going to take. Anyone have experience with this particular mill? How about milling abutments in your lab? We would also be able to mill bars in this mill I assume. I'm just trying to get as much info as I can so we can be prepared for what to expect. Thanks
 
It is best practice to keep the mills either wet or dry not both. We had been milling abutments in house for many years and have gone the opposite direction a lot of labs seem to be moving toward, milling in house. There are reasons we made this decision. When something fails whether the crown, abutment or implant, with an in house milled abutment you are the blame for not using OEM regardless of the situation. This puts a little egg on our face even though we might not have had any control over that. When OEM fails we hand it off to the local implant rep to deal with it, we still have to fix it but the blame shifts, The local implant reps love us for using their product and even promote us in clinical situations because we are providing the reps with a nice commission for using their product. Some of our implant reps will provide us with some free stuff also like extra screws and analogs. They will sometimes provide the clinicians with free scan bodies or impression posts knowing we will be having them make the abutment for us. Yes of costs for abutments has gone up quite a bit but there is added value we see going that direction. That also set us up for negotiating better pricing for us.
 
It is best practice to keep the mills either wet or dry not both. We had been milling abutments in house for many years and have gone the opposite direction a lot of labs seem to be moving toward, milling in house. There are reasons we made this decision. When something fails whether the crown, abutment or implant, with an in house milled abutment you are the blame for not using OEM regardless of the situation. This puts a little egg on our face even though we might not have had any control over that. When OEM fails we hand it off to the local implant rep to deal with it, we still have to fix it but the blame shifts, The local implant reps love us for using their product and even promote us in clinical situations because we are providing the reps with a nice commission for using their product. Some of our implant reps will provide us with some free stuff also like extra screws and analogs. They will sometimes provide the clinicians with free scan bodies or impression posts knowing we will be having them make the abutment for us. Yes of costs for abutments has gone up quite a bit but there is added value we see going that direction. That also set us up for negotiating better pricing for us.
I should have added, the Neodent and Straumann abutments milled in this mill would be "OEM." The quote on the mill I have is from Straumann so milling the abutments in this mill would be a validated process.
 
Purchase the same wet mill from a different company, other than Straumann. Straumann lab support is a major headache.
 
Purchase the same wet mill from a different company, other than Straumann. Straumann lab support is a major headache.
I'm assuming this is the case with Straumann. I don't think we would be validated to mill out Neodent and Strauman abutments if we don't go through Straumann though.
 
Don't buy from Straumann. That's actually more important than the mill selection.

I haven't used a 42, but I did use a 4, its predecessor, and have used the 51/52/53 dry mill lines extensively, and: Roland mills are too lightly-built to be used as metal workhorses. Our 4s were money sinks and we eventually got rid of them. What's the 42's price-point? If it's comparable to a 52/53's price point, yeah, way too lightweight. Buy more mill than you think you need when it comes to metal, even if it's just abutments. We moved on to a VHF, which was also an expensive mistake, before landing on an imescore 350i+, which is the first wet mill we've tried that seems equal to the task.


...did I mention that buying through Straumann is a serious mistake? Can't emphasize that enough. Putting yourself at the mercy of Straumann's technical support is a recipe for disaster. If a Straumann rep told you that you'll be able to mill Straumann abutments any day now, yeah, I'd treat that as entirely unreliable and wouldn't use it to influence your decision here. Can you really not mill OEM premills with a different mill? I'm not sure how all that works, in terms of validated workflows, but we run OEM straumann abutments all the time on our Medentika fixtures for the imescore. Straumann support basically bricked a Rapidshape printer we acquired, and pivoted to blaming us and claiming we were doing things improperly after they remote-accessed the printer over a weekend, when it was in good working order, and we found the Z-axis wouldn't budge for heaven or hell on Monday. We interact as little as possible with them now, and having to go through Straumann for support is now an instant dealbreaker for any purchases we're considering. Nothing but horror stories from everyone who's had to deal with them.

...but if you can maintain and troubleshoot your own mill, or have a trusted third-party equipment technician you're willing to pay to service the mill from Day 1 while ignoring the warranty/free service period, yeah, you can probably make a Straumann purchase work.
 
I'm assuming this is the case with Straumann. I don't think we would be validated to mill out Neodent and Strauman abutments if we don't go through Straumann though.
a versamill, like the 500, 314, or 726 if sold with Hyperdent supported by Axsys would have all the validation through Dess for Dess versions of Neodent and Straumann. these are cheaper than OEM.

we do have also dedicated Straumann CARES, and Medentika fixtures which are developed independently of Straumann that can mill CARES/Medentika blanks if you choose to use them instead of Dess.
 
Don't buy from Straumann. That's actually more important than the mill selection.

I haven't used a 42, but I did use a 4, its predecessor, and have used the 51/52/53 dry mill lines extensively, and: Roland mills are too lightly-built to be used as metal workhorses. Our 4s were money sinks and we eventually got rid of them. What's the 42's price-point? If it's comparable to a 52/53's price point, yeah, way too lightweight. Buy more mill than you think you need when it comes to metal, even if it's just abutments. We moved on to a VHF, which was also an expensive mistake, before landing on an imescore 350i+, which is the first wet mill we've tried that seems equal to the task.


...did I mention that buying through Straumann is a serious mistake? Can't emphasize that enough. Putting yourself at the mercy of Straumann's technical support is a recipe for disaster. If a Straumann rep told you that you'll be able to mill Straumann abutments any day now, yeah, I'd treat that as entirely unreliable and wouldn't use it to influence your decision here. Can you really not mill OEM premills with a different mill? I'm not sure how all that works, in terms of validated workflows, but we run OEM straumann abutments all the time on our Medentika fixtures for the imescore. Straumann support basically bricked a Rapidshape printer we acquired, and pivoted to blaming us and claiming we were doing things improperly after they remote-accessed the printer over a weekend, when it was in good working order, and we found the Z-axis wouldn't budge for heaven or hell on Monday. We interact as little as possible with them now, and having to go through Straumann for support is now an instant dealbreaker for any purchases we're considering. Nothing but horror stories from everyone who's had to deal with them.

...but if you can maintain and troubleshoot your own mill, or have a trusted third-party equipment technician you're willing to pay to service the mill from Day 1 while ignoring the warranty/free service period, yeah, you can probably make a Straumann purchase work.
a versamill, like the 500, 314, or 726 if sold with Hyperdent supported by Axsys would have all the validation through Dess for Dess versions of Neodent and Straumann. these are cheaper than OEM.

we do have also dedicated Straumann CARES, and Medentika fixtures which are developed independently of Straumann that can mill CARES/Medentika blanks if you choose to use them instead of Dess.
Thank you for this feedback. Let's go at this a different way. The point of this mill is to mill emax first. We don't want to do the labor of pressing emax anymore. We would also like the ability to mill abutments if it's feasible. We don't want to buy another PM7 type mill. We are in a Straumann dominated market so the ability to mill Straumann and Neodent is very appealing. I wouldn't want to mill DESS for these implants because we already use Atlantis and TruAbutment for the doctors who are good with not using OEM abutments. Our quote is for about $29,500(mill, training, CAM). Is there another mill you would recommend with the understanding that it's main purpose would be to mill emax? Who would you buy it from?
 
Why don't you want to buy another PM7? They're excellent mills with good support. They're ideally suited to Emax as well. We use ours exclusively for Emax and it's by far the least needy / least headache-inducing mill in the room. Granted, we don't use ours for metal so I don't know how well it'll double-duty at that.
 
Why don't you want to buy another PM7? They're excellent mills with good support. They're ideally suited to Emax as well. We use ours exclusively for Emax and it's by far the least needy / least headache-inducing mill in the room. Granted, we don't use ours for metal so I don't know how well it'll double-duty at that.
$80k

But you arent wrong. I love our PM7
 
Thank you for this feedback. Let's go at this a different way. The point of this mill is to mill emax first. We don't want to do the labor of pressing emax anymore. We would also like the ability to mill abutments if it's feasible. We don't want to buy another PM7 type mill. We are in a Straumann dominated market so the ability to mill Straumann and Neodent is very appealing. I wouldn't want to mill DESS for these implants because we already use Atlantis and TruAbutment for the doctors who are good with not using OEM abutments. Our quote is for about $29,500(mill, training, CAM). Is there another mill you would recommend with the understanding that it's main purpose would be to mill emax? Who would you buy it from?
314 is well suited to emax and ti abutment, but its got two giant legs up on most other machines: 1. it can mill ti bars and chrome, 2. is more rigid and better supported than granite based mills.

for its price you'd be hard pressed to find something equivalent, though it may be a bit overpowered for your needs and therefore over budget.

check out the promotion https://axsysdental.com/AxsysDentalSolutionsFinancing.html#promotions
 
I would go with either the machines from Axsys AX450 or the Matron from AG. You have a validated product from Straumann with the Pre-milled Cares abutments and both of those machines are made robust enough to handle heavy milling in either glass or titanium. Price is more than the Roland but it will give you more service with less problems. Both are in the 70k range.
 
314 is well suited to emax and ti abutment, but its got two giant legs up on most other machines: 1. it can mill ti bars and chrome, 2. is more rigid and better supported than granite based mills.

for its price you'd be hard pressed to find something equivalent, though it may be a bit overpowered for your needs and therefore over budget.

check out the promotion https://axsysdental.com/AxsysDentalSolutionsFinancing.html#promotions
Do you mill full TI bars including the interfaces with this mill?

I guess my question is, is this mill accurate enough to reliably mill the interfaces perfectly?
 
Do you mill full TI bars including the interfaces with this mill?

I guess my question is, is this mill accurate enough to reliably mill the interfaces perfectly?
The 314 mills ti bars beautifully with perfect interfaces, especially if you use hyperdent with replace geometry. If I had the space I'd go for the 726 though just for the spindle, but the 314 is great for titanium. Plus, you get the amazing support from Axsys. I use it for emax, custom abutments and ti-bars primarily but I have wet milled zirconia on it too.
 
you can buy an Arum mill down under, but not a versamill.
 
I have had a Dyamach DT2 for 6 years now. I am looking to replace it with a Redon Best Mill With 14 disc changer and 24 bur holder. A really good Mill Engineer I know has told me that $ for $ this is the best mill on the market right now. Not cheap. Mills both wet and dry.
 
I'd just use your PM7 to mill e.max and get yourself a dry mill...you can get hefty dry mills for a fraction of the prices of the wet mills and since you already have a great wet mill, that's the direction I would go. Now if your milling titanium, I would go with Axsys machine because they are the pro's in this realm but sounds like you are happy with Atlantis and don't need to go in that direction. Get yourself a robust dry mill and put that PM7 to work.
 
I'm assuming this is the case with Straumann. I don't think we would be validated to mill out Neodent and Strauman abutments if we don't go through Straumann though.
I would just check around, before teaming up with Straumann. You may be experiencing what I experience in my area. My Straumann rep is great, but I have had to explain to him that I do my best to avoid having to work with Straumann as a company, due to Straumann HQ's lack support and knowledge of their own products and that HQ is frustrating to deal with. When you are investing that amount of money, in a mill, Straumann would be my last choice.
 

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