Penrith, Cumbria. Friday 22-August-2025.
The dental industry has significantly changed since I last had a crown a decade ago. The transition from analogue to digital is amazing. Using CAD/CAM techniques the process of designing and manufacturing crowns has been transformed.
Back then an impression was taken using something resembling a stainless steel horseshoe filled with plasticine stuffed into your mouth. Suppressing the gag reflex was areal challenge. This was done twice: once for the prepared crown and the other for the opposing bite. Those were sent away and positives cast for the dental technician to craft a crown that fit the stump and met precisely with the opposing teeth. See Two titanium implants conclusion for an example. That could take weeks or a couple of months. The second visit was for the fitting and fine adjustments to the bite.
Now the dentist creates a 3D image using a camera wand that takes what must be hundreds of images judging by the amount of clicking. The wand has an orientation detector and some amazing software uses this information to stitch together a 3D image.
Repeating this with the opposing teeth and a clenched jaw scan creates an image with the bite contours shown in colour. Now I am seriously impressed.
The software the suggests a crown design based on all the above. The dentist then tweaks the design on the screen to get the best mechanical and aesthetic result.
When they are happy with the design, they send it to the room next door where an automated lathe is loaded with a blank cube of zirconium dioxide.
The CNC (Computer Numerical Control) lathe then does it stuff and turns the little cube into a crown ready to be fitted.
The final fitting is done with a bit more tweaking. The crown is then cemented in place and the final adjustments done with articulating paper and some delicate grinding. You then walk out with a new crown prepped, manufactured and fitted all done in a couple of hours.
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