Digital Scanning — No Impression Trays
We diagnose the need for a crown using our iTero scanner, and we use Primescan digital scanning to capture the detail our laboratory needs to fabricate your restoration.
If you’ve had a crown made the old way — a tray full of impression material, several minutes of trying not to gag — you’ll appreciate the difference. Digital scanning takes a few minutes, involves no putty, and produces a far more accurate model than physical impressions ever did. Better data going to the lab means a better fit coming back, and fewer adjustments in the chair.
Zirconia and Porcelain Crowns
We provide both traditional crowns and zirconia crowns, and we’ll recommend the material that suits your specific tooth.
Zirconia is exceptionally strong, which makes it well suited to molars, where biting forces are highest. It’s also tooth-colored, so strength doesn’t come at the cost of appearance. For teeth where aesthetics carry the most weight, porcelain and porcelain-zirconia options give us more control over translucency and how the crown catches light.
Your dentist will talk through the trade-offs for your particular tooth. Position in the mouth, how much you show when you smile, how heavily you grind, and how much natural tooth remains all factor into the choice.
The Laboratories We Work With
Our crowns are made by outside laboratories — both a local lab and a national lab, depending on what a case calls for.
Both are highly technical operations, and we chose them specifically for their shading work. Matching a single crown to the teeth beside it is genuinely difficult; natural teeth aren’t one flat color, but vary in translucency, have subtle characterizations, and shift in shade from the gumline to the edge. Our labs do custom shading to find an exact match, which is why a well-made crown disappears into your smile instead of standing slightly apart from it.
How Long the Process Takes
Plan on about a week from your first appointment to your finished crown. Turnaround from the laboratory typically runs up to ten days, and is usually closer to a week.
At your first appointment, we prepare the tooth, take a digital scan, and place a temporary crown so you leave with a functioning, natural-looking tooth. The temporary protects the prepared tooth and lets you eat and speak normally in the meantime.
At your second appointment, we remove the temporary, check the fit and shade of your permanent crown, make any adjustments needed, and bond it into place.
