2025-12-29 – Weekly Dental Technician News : Which step halved zirconia remakes?

Last week, our community delved into a range of practical and technical discussions. Notable topics included effective strategies for reducing zirconia remakes and the importance of controlling zirconia dust in the lab. Members also shared insights on improving margin accuracy with Exocad and MillBox, while others discussed essential tools for intaglio pressure checks. The conversations were rich with shared experiences and tips to enhance daily operations.


This Week’s Hot Topics

Looking for validated calibration STL sets
This thread is all about finding reliable STL sets for calibration, a critical component for ensuring precision in digital workflows.
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Best tools for intaglio pressure checks
Members are swapping recommendations on the best tools to ensure proper intaglio pressure, which is key for patient comfort and prosthetic success.
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Best CE for reducing remakes
With remakes being a costly issue, this discussion highlights continuing education courses that have effectively helped reduce them.
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Exocad + MillBox: margin accuracy tips
A practical look at how to enhance margin accuracy when using Exocad and MillBox together, an important topic for achieving optimal results.
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Zirconia dust controls aren’t optional
This conversation underscores the necessity of zirconia dust controls in the lab to ensure safety and quality.
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Which step halved our zirconia remakes
Learn about a pivotal step that significantly reduced zirconia remakes, sparking interest among those looking to improve efficiency.
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Handpiece runout killing my margins
Explore solutions for handpiece runout issues that can compromise margins, a common challenge faced by many technicians.
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Zirconia in-process QC that works
Members are discussing effective quality control measures during zirconia processing to maintain high standards.
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When the 98mm puck fights back
Dive into troubleshooting issues with the 98mm puck, a frequent topic for those working with this specific material format.
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Quarter-turn math on expansion screws
A detailed discussion on getting the math right with quarter-turn expansion screws, crucial for ensuring device accuracy.
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Looking forward to another week of engaging discussions. Keep sharing your insights and experiences—it’s what makes this community thrive.

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The one step that halved our zirconia remakes was a 20-minute 120°C pre-dry in the furnace before sintering on any units that were steam-cleaned or stained — moisture boil-off was warping margins and causing intaglio high spots… It adds a bit of time, but paired with your “margin accuracy with Exocad and MillBox” tweaks it’s been worth it — anyone else seeing fewer pressure-check marks after a pre-dry?

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Quick example: switching MillBox to add a 0.6 mm ‘pencil’ finish pass on the intaglio and nudging Exocad cement gap to about 80 µm with 0.2 mm distance-to-margin cut our remakes about in half — seating binds were the real culprit, . Caveat: push the gap much past 90 µm and we saw rocking. Anyone getting cleaner seats using a 1.0 mm tool for the final pass instead of 0.6?

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We cut remakes by tightening our furnace: monthly calibration found a +18°C drift, and slowing the ramp to about 7°C/min up to 900°C on multilayer pucks reduced distortion. It adds about 25 minutes but stopped most marginal pulls even with precise Exocad/MillBox margins. Curious if you’ve tried a thermocouple check, @mayaF_1988.

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Swapping the final glaze for a full mechanical polish on occlusal/contacts stopped the “mystery highs” we’d see after try-in — glaze thickness was just enough to shift occlusion. Using a DiaShine sequence and a light 50 µm Al2O3 intaglio sandblast at about 1 bar before cement adds about 4 minutes and costs nothing, and our remakes dropped sharply. Small caveat: it’s a bit less glassy unless you finish with a felt wheel — @MartaP, have you seen the same?

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, “hot tooth” lower molars that laugh at 2% lido drive me nuts. We started buffering the 2% lidocaine 1:100k for the IAN (Onpharma or a quick 1:10 8.4% bicarb mix) and cue the assistant to pivot to a Gow‑Gates if cold still hurts — then your buccal 4% articaine and a PDL usually hold without intrapulpal; AAE has a decent summary: https://www.aae.org/specialty/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/06/ecfe-summer-2013.pdf. I still keep the rubber stop ready in case intrapulpal is needed.

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