Perfect Ceramic Processing

Buying the scanner, the mill and the furnace did not stop the crown coming out of the chamber as a problem. A void at the contact, ten minutes of grinding chairside, an e.max that left the furnace one flat shade, a zirconia with black spots no polisher will shift.

By the end of this course you should be able to take a scan the software can build on, prepare a tooth to the thickness a milled ceramic needs and no deeper, marginate and design a crown that seats without adjustment, choose the block for the tooth, and finish it. Each of the four material families gets its own protocol, high glass ceramics, e.max, hybrids and zirconia, whether you polish or stain and glaze, and the course ends with a crown cemented to a TiBase.

Dr. Ahmad Al-Hassiny recorded it for iDD. In his New Zealand practice the assistants scan, remove the sprue and glaze the crown while he sees the next patient, so this is the workflow as it runs on an ordinary day rather than a lab demonstration.

He recorded these in 2021 and 2022. All the information and processes are still clinically relevant; just the products, prices and furnace times are from then.

Eleven chapters, 41 lessons and 280 minutes of lecture and clinic, with a ten-question quiz after each chapter. Chapters 01 to 05 are the workflow in order, scanning, prep and margination, design, materials, milling and finishing. Chapter 06 is a webinar on the milling and finishing ground with his same-day day plan, chapters 07 to 10 process one material family each at the bench, and chapter 11 cements a crown to a TiBase.

Ahmad recorded the chapters as separate guides, so a video may call the next chapter “the next course” or point you to “our other courses”. They are all here, in order.

What you will learn

• The three key factors behind every scan, and the scanning protocol for full arches, edentulous arches and quadrants
• Why the margin no longer belongs at the gum line, the thickness a milled ceramic needs, and when to cover a cusp
• Margination in CEREC and TRIOS
• The design tools every system shares, eight things to check before you mill, and three full designs in CEREC and 3Shape
• The four groups of CAD/CAM materials, what each is for, and the ones he steers you away from
• Sprue position, mill setup and sprue removal
• Polishing against glazing and firing, and how to prepare each material for a resin cement
• Nesting, pucks against blocks, mills and furnaces, and what speed sintering costs you
• The same-day crown day plan his practice runs, with the assistants doing the finishing
• Polishing, staining and glazing a high glass ceramic, an e.max crown and a hybrid ceramic, step by step at the bench
• Zirconia from the green state to the furnace, sprue removal with the right bur, coloring white and pre-shaded blocks, sintering, and staining after
• Cementing an e.max crown to a TiBase, from the sandblaster to the clamp

7 CPD/CE hours, assessed by eleven ten-question quizzes with an 80 percent pass mark and unlimited attempts.

You get lifetime access, updates included.

Written for general dentists with a chairside CAD/CAM system or about to buy one, for the assistants who will do the scanning and the finishing once they are trained, and for technicians moving from the lab bench to chairside blocks.

It does not cover the adhesive chemistry behind the cementation protocols, or the CEREC software beyond the tools every system shares. For the adhesives there is Dr. Tony Mennito’s Bonding – Everything You Need to Know, and the full CEREC workflow from administration to milling is Ahmad’s CEREC Clinical Workflows inside CEREC Same-Day Excellence. Layering and cutback stay in the lab and are not covered.

Seven PDFs come with the course, the CAD/CAM Chairside Materials Overview, a processing flowchart for each material family, A Complete Guide to Characterizing Monolithic Restorations and the Zirconia Guide from Indication to Cementation. Each sits under Materials on the chapters and lessons it belongs to.

Sold on its own and as part of CEREC Same-Day Excellence and Planmeca Workflow Excellence.