At The Denture & Implant Clinic, we believe that working closely with the laboratory technician is essential to achieving the best results.
The laboratory technician is the member of the dental team that physically makes dentures, crowns, and bridges. It’s still largely done by hand, but computers and scanners are now making the process quicker and more accurate.
The usual process of making a denture, crown, or bridge involves the dentist taking a mould or impression of your teeth and then sending it off to the technician to make. The laboratory technician has no idea what you look like and there are many factors that are involved in creating the perfect smile.
The factors mentioned below can massively impact on how to create the perfect smile, but it’s often forgotten about and the person creating your smile (i.e. the lab technician) doesn’t get to see any of this:
- Shape of your face
- Shape of your body and your build
- The symmetry of your face
- The colour of your skin and lips
- The length of your upper lip to the gum level
- The size, volume and shape of your lips
- Amount of tooth showing with your mouth at rest
- Amount of tooth you show when smiling
- Your age and how this affects your face (not just your chronological age)
- Facial support and volume of fat tissue
A good technician who knows and understands how these factors can affect the appearance of your smile will endeavor to meet you to see how his work is going to affect the final result. That’s why its so important that the dentist works closely with the person who is creating your perfect smile.
Please bear in mind that a perfect smile may also not be so perfect as we often aim to create a natural look. This all depends on what the patient wants, as this whole process is incredibly bespoke.
In addition, when impressions are taken, it is important to have these casts up straight away as the impression starts to distort (a minor amount) as soon as it is taken. Most dentists will wait for the laboratory to pick the impressions up at a set time and then the impressions will be with the driver until he does his rounds, and lastly, they will get delivered to the dental laboratory. Once the dental lab technician gets the impressions he will have to quickly pour up a whole day’s worth of impressions. Due to the workload – quality control may not be the best and its often many hours after you have had the impression taken that it is poured up to a model which means inaccuracies may have been created due to the impression deformation.
That’s why at The Denture & Implant Clinic we have a laboratory technician on site who pours the impression as soon as its taken so that the model we work off is the most accurate.
Another great advantage of having a dental technician on site is that if you break your dentures we can fix it for you while you wait. It normally takes an hour, so this means you are never without your teeth!
