How Dental Crowns are Made

Dental crowns are created by a dental technician who is part of the dental team who fabricates dental appliances dentures, crown and bridgework, removeable prothesis and implants.

The technician will be skilled in working with gold, precious metals, dental porcelain, acrylics, and, recently CAD/CAM, in order to custom manufacture devices that will exactly fit a patient. Dental technology is changing rapidly, with new materials and techniques gaining clinical acceptance.

Today's restorations are metal free and offer good strength with cosmetic esthetics. In some jurisdictions a dental technician is a designated health professional due to the intrinsic risk of harm when a dental appliance is fabricated incorrectly. Dentists are no longer taught how to fabricate dental appliances to any great extent and depend on the skill and knowledge the dental technician brings with regard to materials used, evaluation of clinical design and to the fabrication process.

Dental technicians are educated to degree level at a post secondary facility. The profession attracts artistic, detail oriented individuals who have a flair for this unique combination of science, art, and digital dexterity.

A Dental technician may use different substances for creating a crown. One of these substances is porcelain. Porcelain allows a dental technician to create lifelike crowns and bridges for the dentist.

The dentist will usually specify a shade of porcelain, corresponding to a set of pots in the lab containing the porcelain powder. A common shade system used is the Vita guide. The powder corresponding to the dentine base is mixed with water, and then fired. Further layers are built up to mimic the natural translucency of the enamel of the tooth. Sometimes the porcelain is fused to a semi-precious metal or precious metal such as gold, for extra strength. Newer systems use an alumino-silicate core that gives increased strength. Porcelain systems such as Empress (tm), and Procera are gaining in poularity among todays dentists.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia material "Crowns"