Gold crowns are still popular!

The last couple of weeks were very interesting for me at the lab. We’ve had several full gold crowns, porcelain fused to metal and cast post and cores come through the door.

Though we are excited about the digital future of dentistry, it is imperative that we aren’t throwing out the baby with the bathwater and maintaining the craftsmanship that we learn as dental technicians.

 

Custom Gold Crowns

We had a few custom requests regarding gold.

For example, we made these cool gold canine crowns (gold fangs) for tattoo artist Romance

Custom Gold Grills

I really enjoy going “gold school” and hand waxing a few units. Here is a custom grill we made in house.

Two ways we make gold crowns

Typically, I prefer doing everything in house but with Folker (who’s a great help when it comes to casting metals) being gone for a couple of days I quickly realized that time is money and I have to once again navigate between the analog and digital world.

I started designing the crowns in 3shape and milled them out of wax so I can cast them in the lab. I do that because I love being in control. I can show the dentist or the patient what the teeth could look like on the model, make changes as needed and then apply that right away.

Check out the video below for a demo of how it’s done… stay until the end for full entertainment!.

 

 

For more efficiency (ie: to ensure quick turn around times), we designed a few cases and sent them out to Argen to get them milled out of gold to have more time for all the other cases coming in.

Folker and I had the pleasure of visiting the Argen facilities a few weeks ago and came up close with the metal mills.
Let me tell you, the process is incredible! I would love to share what it was like in there, but security was tighter than Fort Knox so we couldn’t take any pictures.

What I can tell you is that the precision that goes into making their gold crowns is outstanding and it can be helpful for labs that don’t want to stock expensive metals. While there, we had the chance to hold a gold bar that the company has as a show piece in their safe. It was 28lbs of 98% pure gold worth around $425 000 US dollars!!

It really took everything for me not to take it and run.

What are the advantages of gold crowns?

There are many advantages to using gold over other materials. Gold crowns have been used for thousands of years (really!). For this reason, we know that they work well and they have excellent longevity.

For dentists, gold crowns are great for a more conservative prep style, as we can get knife-edge margins with gold as opposed to the heavy chamfer margins that are required for all-ceramic crowns.

I love working with gold and getting my hands dirty polishing it. The combination of cold metal that looks warm and rich still gets me excited.

If you have questions and want to know more about how we incorporate analog and digital in the lab drop me a line.

Until next time!

– Till