Every dentist knows the feeling. A crown comes back from the lab and it just doesn’t seat the way it should. It’s frustrating for you, your team, and your patient, especially when you feel like you did everything right.
At First Choice Dental Lab, we get to work with a wide variety of cases each day, and we’ve noticed that the practices getting consistently great fits tend to share a handful of habits.
Let’s take a look at some key strategies you can use to craft better crowns.
1. Go Digital Wherever You Can
Intraoral scanning has gone from a ‘nice extra’ to a standard part of the workflow in just a few years. And frankly, it’s earned that spot.
Digital scans help reduce the human error factor that tends to creep into physical impressions. They provide both you and your lab a much clearer picture of the prep, the margins, and the surrounding teeth.
If you haven’t made the switch yet, this is probably the single biggest change you can make.
2. Build a Routine You Can Repeat Every Time
Good scans start with good conditions.
Keep the field dry, avoid harsh overhead lighting, and hold the wand with a relaxed, pen style grip so you can get into tight spots without straining.
We suggest following the same path every time: start on the occlusal surfaces, do full swipes molar to molar, then roll to the lingual and buccal surfaces the same way. And try not to over scan.
Piling on more images than you need tends to introduce more error, not less, so avoid repeatedly rescanning areas you’ve already captured unless you need to correct or improve the data.
3. Nail the Shade Before You Prep
Capture shade before the patient’s teeth get prepped and start to dehydrate, since both change how a tooth actually looks.
Send your lab a few photos with shade tabs clearly captured in the photo, including the shade on the tab.
Hold the shade tab’s incisal edge to the incisal edge of the tooth you are trying to match and also make sure the color and hue in your shade tab is accurately depicted in the photo. If there’s too much or too little light, we can’t get an accurate read.
While you’re at it, double check the shade letter and number. It’s an easy thing to get wrong, and ordering the wrong shade for a tooth is a common and avoidable mistake.
Solid photos give your lab what they need to match shade well, even on back teeth where it’s tempting to skip this step.
4. Use Double Cord Retraction for Cleaner Margins
Placing two retraction cords instead of one gives you a clearer, drier field around the margin, and it tends to produce more consistent scans, especially on harder cases.
It adds a little chair time, but it can provide better tissue displacement and moisture control, making it easier to capture the margin accurately.
This technique can save time at delivery and prevent remakes.
5. Get Comfortable Reading Your Own Prep Scans
Reviewing a digital impression is a skill of its own, and it takes some practice to get good at it, especially if you came up doing analog impressions.
Always switch to a monochromatic or stone-model view so margins and contacts are easier to spot. Some scan artifacts are hard to see in the color version. The stone model view can immediately show you where you may need to refine a scan.
(Click image to learn more)
6. Give Your Scans One More Look Before Sending
Keep an eye on your image count, and try switching to a monochromatic or model-style view for a clearer look at the fine detail. For tricky cases, go ahead and flag margins manually.
A few extra minutes here can save everyone a remake down the line.
7. Use Live Scan Reviews When You Can
If your workflow allows it, ask the lab to review the the scan while the patient is in the chair, especially on complex cases.
It’s a lot easier to fix something while the patient is still in the chair than after they’ve already left.
8. Actually Look At the Design Preview
Don’t just click approve. Take the time to look at the design in 3D, check it against what the case needs clinically and aesthetically, and leave notes if something looks off.
This step exists to catch problems before milling or printing even starts, so it’s worth using.
9. Match Your Prep to the Material
CAD/CAM materials are only as good as the prep behind them.
Zirconia, for example, generally requires adequate occlusal clearance and a well-defined margin, but the exact reduction and margin design depend on the specific material and manufacturer’s instructions.
10. Try a 3D Printed Provisional as a Trial Run
Printing a temporary before the final restoration gives you and your patient a chance to check fit and function and make small adjustments early.
That usually means fewer surprises and less chair time once the final crown arrives.
Key Takeaways
Better fitting crowns almost always come down to the same few things: clean data going in, careful review along the way, and good communication with your lab.
If you’d like to talk through your current scanning workflow or have a question about prepping for a specific case, reach out to us today – we’re happy to help!
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About First Choice Dental Lab
First Choice Dental Lab is a full-service dental lab with locations in Downers Grove, Il. & Wauwatosa, Wi.
We manufacture & customize quality dental restorations for general dentists. We create smiles based on your needs and budget.
We’re here to help you give your patients a reason to smile!
Request your fee schedule today by completing the form on this page.
