Dental Lab Products Tech Guide 2008 - (Page 12) techtomorrow LIQUID ZIRCONIA LIQUID WHITE STEEL New liquid zirconia eliminates material waste, CAD/CAM cutting tool wear, and restoration inconsistency. By Pam Johnson Photography by Allen Birnbach IMAGINE A ZIRCONIA CAD/CAM MILLING BLOCK that doesn’t create fine dust particulates to clog sensitive machinery during milling, doesn’t wear down the working facets of milling burs, and that, once used up, can be combined with other used blocks and reformed into a completely new usable milling block, eliminating material wastage. Taking that concept one step further, imagine a flowable zirconia liquid that isn’t milled at all, but rather injection molded into a moving assembly line of customized “tooth molds” and the material inside the molds harden by chemical heat reaction. Impossible? Not anymore. Chris Scharf, owner of Espritdent, a CAD/CAM outsourcing Super Center located in Golden, Colo., has assembled the science, the material, and the manufacturNext-generation flowable zirconia material. chinery. Unsure where to turn, he followed the advice of a dentist friend and began investigating the field of dental technology, which he had been told was rapidly converting from hand-craftsmanship to customized CAD/CAM production methods. He ordered a market research study from the University of Colorado on the current status of the dental industry in the United States. After studying the results, he determined zirconia would be the material of choice for the future and a career opportunity existed to open an outsourcing facility to service dental laboratories with genuinely American-made substructures from the ground up. Scharf took his years of experience in CAD/CAM technology and rapidly started working with software companies to build a solution that would create a mass customized process. In August 2004, the FDA accepted the first medical device registration from Scharf, and in 2005, he opened the doors of Espritdent for business. ing method. Scharf’s background is hardly steeped in the dental profession. For 18 years, he was involved in commercial and defense aircraft manufacturing technology, supplying customized aluminum, titanium, and ceramic part assemblies that are commonly found on 737s, 747s, C-130s, C-17s, and F-22s, typically 5-axis milled or injection-molded parts using robust CAD/CAM machines. In that business, Scharf was no stranger to material science, tight production tolerances, and customized automated manufacturing. After September 11, 2001, however, the aircraft industry exponentially changed and Scharf was left with a new 30,000-foot facility full of expensive ma- Next-generation material Always tinkering to manufacture a better product more efficiently and economically, Scharf knew that he was producing crown and bridge substructures that were within the tightest tolerances his machinery and the material would allow. But as he analyzed material usage and milling bur replacement costs, 12 techguide2008 dentallabproducts
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