Press, Stain & Glaze Lithium Disilicate

[Al.]

I know there are several labs that are outsourcing their pressed ceramics.
I wanted to show you how quick and easy it is to do it your self, if you make the minimal investment to buy a system.

I stain and glaze 95% of my posteriors and on upper bi's and anteriors I wax full contour then cut back the wax and only layer the incisal 1/3 unless I need to mask out discoloration.

I use this mold to make my occlusal forms. I know there are several preformed molds, and I intend to order some to try them out, but I havnet yet.
I use a medium wax, hard wont work well, and I only fill in enough wax to barely cover the mold.

I lub the contacts but not the opposing yet, then while the mold is still warm I position it on the dipped die, close the model firmly then open it. The mold will stick to the opposing. Then I add wax to the occ. surface of the die making sure there are no voids between the dipped coping and the die, and reclose.
Then I tack the mold down in one spot and reopen.
Then one cusp at a time, starting with the lingual, I flow wax under the mold and push each cusp down slightly out of occlusion.

I go ahead and wax the contours then add occlusial contacts where needed.
It is important to ck your occ. with articulating paper in the wax because you can really mess up a crn buy grinding the occlusion. This material is very hard to recontour. I use Accu Film 1.
Leave your contacts very slightly tight or you may end up adding on at glaze.

Now treat them like a FMC except press them instead of casting them.

Tweak your contacts and occlusion.

Stain, glaze and then check on the solid model, etch and your done.

I hope this helps anybody thinking about buying a system.

This single was a cake walk, it had no opposing.

 

[labdude]

Thanks Al.
Great pictures.
Mike.

 

[JohnWilson]

Good thread AL,

Have you pressed much E-max over Zi cores?

I have a FMR case that is getting pressed out today. I am nervous as I have so much time invested in this case thus far. Stain and Glaze Emax over procera cores for 16 post units and Empress Esthetic's for the ant 12.

Will be a lot of rings today

Wish me luck!

 

[Al.]

Good thread AL,

Have you pressed much E-max over Zi cores?

I have a FMR case that is getting pressed out today. I am nervous as I have so much time invested in this case thus far. Stain and Glaze Emax over procera cores for 16 post units and Empress Esthetic's for the ant 12.

Will be a lot of rings today

Wish me luck!

Good luck, thats a lot of $ in copings your investing. Ive only done it twice so far, once on a 3unit frame work and another time on maryland br. pontic.
I used the zirpress ingots in A2 shade, but I didnt like how the shade turned out. I think if I remember correctly it looked to dark and I had to put incisal all the way down on to the gin. of the maryland br pontic to lighten the shade.
Ive done a few pom with no problems.
Ive always wondered if one of the copings would move during the pressing process. I guess if so I would have to recontour it and layer.

Are the ant. 12, laminates or full crns? Ive never used esthetic for full crns.
Do they turn out nice? Have you ever had any fractures with full coverage esthetic? I pressed a couple of full teeth in ETC1 and they looked beautiful.

Ill never have time but I always thought it would be cool to press a complete set of teeth, roots and all, and set them in a denture, but make them removeable, and articulate it.

You should document your big cases like that with photos, from start to finish, from model work to in the mouth.
I dont know how to take pics in the mouth, but Im going to take a course on it and invest in a cam.

 

[JohnWilson]

Good luck, thats a lot of $ in copings your investing. Ive only done it twice so far, once on a 3unit frame work and another time on maryland br. pontic.
I used the zirpress ingots in A2 shade, but I didnt like how the shade turned out. I think if I remember correctly it looked to dark and I had to put incisal all the way down on to the gin. of the maryland br pontic to lighten the shade.
Ive done a few pom with no problems.
Ive always wondered if one of the copings would move during the pressing process. I guess if so I would have to recontour it and layer.

Are the ant. 12, laminates or full crns? Ive never used esthetic for full crns.
Do they turn out nice? Have you ever had any fractures with full coverage esthetic? I pressed a couple of full teeth in ETC1 and they looked beautiful.

Ill never have time but I always thought it would be cool to press a complete set of teeth, roots and all, and set them in a denture, but make them removeable, and articulate it.

You should document your big cases like that with photos, from start to finish, from model work to in the mouth.
I dont know how to take pics in the mouth, but Im going to take a course on it and invest in a cam.

One of the good things about FMR cases is you have some fudge factor on shade. I waxed this case full contour made my matrix's did a very uniform cutback in wax and did double scans with my procera scanner so the substructure will have a very even amount of glass veneering them. All consistent thickness.

We have done many Full coverage crowns with cut back with the Esthetic Only ANT though. Its a wonderful lifelike product. We had fractures of this material in the lab based on how we wanted/perceived how the cutback should be. If the veneering porc was greater than 1.5 times the core thickness you run the risk of fracture. Once the case is bonded in the mouth they seem to hold up real well. Prep design is critical as well as good imps. I only use this material for guys that give me very accurate sharp impressions/preps.

Blowing up the image of the die once scanned can really give you an appreciation to the skill some of our clients have. Its a wonderful teaching tool to show a client that wants to improve by showing him what his peers are providing me. Seems to open their eyes.

I have taken photos of this case along the way and sadly they were transfered to a flash drive that seems to have gone on vacation. I had plans on submitting this to JDT and LMT when its finished, so cross your fingers that we can get the flash drive to behave itself.

 

[Clear Precision Dental]

Al, excuse me if you've already said (I prob'ly missed it) but, what press system are you using? Also, what new additional equipment is needed for a lab that has most everything except all-porcelain capabilities? I presume a pressing oven (cost ?) but what about investment, burnout etc. Are some of my conventional things still usable? Also devesting etc... ?

Bottom line, what does a guy (this guy) need to buy to get started (most basic)?

Oh.. almost forgot... Thanks for showing these steps Al! I am (for the most part) a visual learner, and the play-by-play you showed in this post is teaching (and exciting) me a lot! I really appreciate it !!!!!

 

[TheLabGuy]

Press oven ( 3,750=WhipMix Pro Press 100 <<<cheap end) or (8,500=EP5000 Ivoclar <<<High end) Then you have to invest money into an all-ceramic porcelain, whether it be pressable, the actual porcelain, or some type of milling (which most likely would have to be outsourced if your milling your substructures, such as procera, cercon, or YZ). Their are many pressables and the porcelain systems that go with them out there i.e. Nortiake, Ivoclar, Pentron, Dentsply (cough, cough, okay, forget I mentioned that one.....lol). I use Ivoclar, and so does Al, not sure what John uses. As for Mike (Labdude) he's to busy playing with himself to mess with porcelain.....hehehehe Love ya long time Mike.... As for divesting, most of the stuff, if not all of it, is divested using glass beads, other than, you'd have to invest in a all-ceramic investment. My set up cost me around 10,000, inc. oven, porc, and pressables. However, I went to an Ivoclar class before hand, which you may have to if you decide on using their products.

Nice pics Al, ya big waxing stud.

 

[Al.]

Al, excuse me if you've already said (I prob'ly missed it) but, what press system are you using? Also, what new additional equipment is needed for a lab that has most everything except all-porcelain capabilities? I presume a pressing oven (cost ?) but what about investment, burnout etc. Are some of my conventional things still usable? Also devesting etc... ?

Bottom line, what does a guy (this guy) need to buy to get started (most basic)?

Oh.. almost forgot... Thanks for showing these steps Al! I am (for the most part) a visual learner, and the play-by-play you showed in this post is teaching (and exciting) me a lot! I really appreciate it !!!!!

I got Ivoclars system. I just looked at my paperwork I got it about two yrs ago so I dont know what it costs now, but I paid $15,000 for the complete Esthetic kit and the basic Emax kit. That included the $1000 dollars for the course in Buffalo NY. I paid my airfare. They feed you and pay for your room and take you on a tour of Niagra Falls. They really court you.
Ivoclar dosnt like to finance so I put $3000 down and got a 1 yr loan from my local bank, but I paid it off early because I got more work when Drs found out I started doing all ceramic.

The kit gives you every thing you need. Furnace, investment, rings, tongs, cooling racks, layering porclein, shade guides, firing trays, plungers a bit of glass beads, etc etc. Everyting you need to get started.
I bought the other kits or shades as I needed them because on the basic Emax kit you get all the shades in the pressing ingots but not all the shades in the layering porcelin.

You really need a firing furnace dedicated to all ceramic and their furnace is a duel purpose furnace for pressing and firing. So I use it exclusively for all ceramic. I dont know about other pressing furnaces but Ill buy a different brand for a back up in the future because theirs is very expensive.

The Esthetic pressing ingots are mostly used for venners. They are basicly an enamel replacement. They are weaker or more fragile.

The Emax pressing ingots are Lithium Disilicate and are suitable for posteriors and 3 unit br., although Ive done a couple of 4 unit bridges when I had tons of clearance.
The HO (high opacity) ingots are chalk white and used for covering posts etc.
You layer them for color. There is only 1 shade of them.

The MO (medium opacity) ingots have moderate masking ability. They come in 5 shades and you wax a 3/4 coping and add a layer of color on them and then your incisal porc. They have a regular dentin and a deep dentin that is more saturated with color. So a small amount of deep dentin will give you your shade.

The LT (light trans.) ingots have all of the shades as of this Feb. and you wax and stain post. and layer the the incisal on anteriors.

In Feb they are releasing the HT (high trans.) ingots. I cant wait for them.
A high translucent Lithiunm Disilicate. It will probably replace the Esthetic ingots and probably look much better for alot of the press and stain posteriors like B1 and C1 and D2 shades. The LT ingots are not really tran. enough for these shades but they are acceptable for molars.

They have a Zirpress kit that gives you ingots to press to milled zirconia frames, along with bottles of shaded bonding, opaque like powder to condition the frames before you wax to them.

They have a POM (press to metal) kit, but it is a press and stain only , no layering porc. only touch up porcelin.

And they have a gingival porc kit, a deep dentin kit and a porc. modifier kit with all kinds of denten and incisal colors you may never need but it is good to have.

You dont have to order the kits but just buy the shades that you need when you have a call for them.
If you bought all the kits you would have alot of stuff you may never use.
But they come complete with shade guides for everything, and in boxes that all fit together with wheels on the bottom.

Ivoclar has one of the most complete systems and marketing programs that I know of.

Pressing systems fit in C&B labs with no changes to your system. You use glass beads to devest and you need a good sandblaster and I would put an extra dryer in your air line with in 1' of it. Glass beads do not like moisture. I HATE DEVESTING. It is time consuming, A waste of my time.
I bought that new autodevester from Whip mix for $2500. It is a joy! You can check out the thread I started in the equipment section on that. If you only have 5 or 10 units a week to divest its not a problem but if you start doing 20to 30 units a week youll spend 1 1/2 to 2 hours a week humped over your sandblaster.
You will need to put your pressing furnace near your burnout furnace and I recommend a circuit dedicated to it. You have 1 minute from the time you take your ring out of the oven at 1570 F to get it in the pressing furnace, so I guess you could walk it into another room if you had to.
I hope that helps, Al

 

[zena]

i like the mould idea.

 

[Travis]

Who else makes these molds?

Is there a easy way of getting the thin layer of wax out of it?

 

[Al.]

Who else makes these molds?

Is there a easy way of getting the thin layer of wax out of it?

There are a few of companies that sell occlusal patterns. They come in kits like your pontic patterns but they are expensive so I havent tried them. Somebody told me about a kit that was $800. Zahn has one from Kerr that is $249 that includes 288 peices which is close to $1 a peice. They have different sizes and shapes. But I dont know what their anatomy looks like or what kind of occlusion I could get with them.
Another important thing is how plyable they are that is a must or they will break. Also how thick they are. If they are too thick for your crowns you have to take alot of time to thin them. That is why I put the wax in the mold as thin as I can. It also makes them easy to manipulate.
The Ney mold I use has been around for many years. They are impressions of real teeth.
Travis the mold is flexable you bend it and the pattern pops out. Just dont use a brittle wax and its easy.
It costs $81.99 from Zahn.
I use it for all my gold crowns and full contour press Emax. I wax about 4 an hour. I dont know if that is slow, average or fast compared to other people.

 

[TheLabGuy]

Hey Al, I seen you do this (prefab wax patterns) in other posts. I'm curious though, do you just leave a cusp out of occlusion if the pattern doesn't fit in it (cusp to fossa relation) or does this act just like a outline for you to wax too and add accordingly?

 

[phident]

Al what stains did you use for that first case with the two molars. It looked great.
Gregg