3D printing has become a familiar part of dentistry for models, surgical guides, night guards, dentures, and temporary restorations. But there's one question we still hear frequently from dentists:
Can you actually 3D print a permanent dental crown?
The answer is yes.
Definitive crowns, inlays, onlays, and veneers can now be produced chairside using FDA-cleared restorative materials and validated digital workflows. And with the launch of SprintRay Midas Restore, the gap between traditional restorative materials and chairside 3D printing just got considerably smaller.
Midas Restore is SprintRay's newest definitive restorative material, developed specifically for the SprintRay Midas Digital Press.
The resin is filled with more than 75% glass ceramic and zirconia by weight and is indicated for definitive anterior and posterior single crowns, inlays, onlays, and single veneers.
SprintRay designed the material around several characteristics that matter for long-term restorative dentistry: wear resistance, polish retention, strength, translucency, and the way the material behaves when bonded to the remaining tooth.
Midas Restore is available in five shades:
A1, A2, A3, B1, and C2.
Here's where the technology gets interesting.
Midas doesn't operate like a conventional vat-based resin printer.
Highly filled restorative materials become extremely viscous. At more than 75% glass ceramic and zirconia filler, Midas Restore is too thick to flow and self-level like a traditional 3D-printing resin.
SprintRay solves that problem with its Digital Press Stereolithography (DPS) technology.
Instead of relying on the material to flow through a resin tank, Midas uses a pressurized resin capsule to manufacture the restoration layer by layer.
So while we commonly talk about "3D-printed crowns," SprintRay describes the Midas process more specifically as digital pressing.
For the dentist, however, the important part is the workflow: a digital scan and design can become a definitive physical restoration right in the practice.
Strength has traditionally been one of the biggest questions surrounding printed permanent restorations.
According to SprintRay's testing, Midas Restore reaches a maximum biaxial flexural strength of 215 MPa.
But strength alone doesn't tell the entire story.
SprintRay reports that Midas Restore demonstrated five times the wear resistance of its previous Ceramic Crown material after 200,000 testing cycles, with wear performance comparable to a milled hybrid ceramic.
The material also has a reported flexural modulus of 10.5 GPa and a translucency parameter of 13.5 in shade A1.
In other words, SprintRay didn't simply focus on making a stronger resin. Midas Restore was engineered around a combination of strength, wear, flexibility, surface performance, and esthetics.
One of the most interesting parts of the Midas Restore workflow is what happens after manufacturing.
Traditional chairside restorative workflows can involve additional finishing, firing, crystallization, or glazing steps depending on the material being used.
Midas Restore is designed to be polished to its final surface.
After manufacturing and cleaning, the restoration receives a four-minute post-cure using SprintRay NanoCure. It can then be polished without a glaze or firing oven.
That keeps the workflow relatively simple:
Scan → Design → Manufacture → Post-Cure → Polish → Bond
For the right case, the entire process is designed around delivering the definitive restoration during the same appointment.
Midas Restore is currently indicated for:
That makes it much more than simply a "crown resin."
It gives restorative practices another material option for both full-coverage and more conservative partial-coverage dentistry.
And because the material is resin-based, SprintRay notes that clinicians can make adjustments, additions, and repairs intraorally when necessary.
For years, chairside milling has been the established route to definitive same-day restorations.
3D printing has excelled in other areas of the practice, while milling remained the more familiar solution for permanent crowns.
That's changing.
Restorative printing and digital pressing now give practices another way to move from an intraoral scan to a definitive restoration without sending the case to an outside laboratory.
That doesn't mean milling is going away.
It means practices now have more choices.
Depending on the case, material requirements, existing equipment, and desired workflow, a practice may choose milling, restorative printing, or eventually use both.
That's why we continue to recommend evaluating the workflow first and the equipment second.
No—and this is an important distinction.
A dental printer being capable of printing a crown-shaped object doesn't mean the resulting restoration is approved for definitive clinical use.
The printer, restorative material, post-processing equipment, design parameters, and bonding protocol all matter.
Midas Restore, for example, is specifically engineered and validated for the SprintRay Midas Digital Press and NanoCure workflow. It cannot simply be loaded into another SprintRay printer or conventional resin vat.
Practices considering permanent restorative printing should always evaluate the complete validated workflow rather than resin specifications alone.
Yes—and the technology is moving quickly.
Permanent restorative 3D printing has progressed from an interesting emerging application into a real chairside workflow for appropriately selected cases.
Midas Restore represents the latest step in that evolution.
With more than 75% glass ceramic and zirconia filler, FDA clearance for definitive restorations, improved wear resistance, high translucency, and a streamlined polish-to-final workflow, SprintRay is continuing to push its Midas platform further into territory traditionally dominated by chairside milling.
For practices, the bigger story isn't whether printing will replace milling.
It's that same-day dentistry now has more than one manufacturing option.
At Voxel Dental, we help practices evaluate the complete digital restorative workflow—from intraoral scanning and design to chairside milling and restorative 3D printing—to determine which approach makes the most sense for the dentistry they perform.
Interested in adding 3D-printed definitive restorations to your practice? Talk with the Voxel Dental team about SprintRay Midas and the new Midas Restore restorative workflow.
Shop SprintRay Midas Restore resin capsules here.
The technical claims here are based on SprintRay's newly published Midas Restore specifications: >75% glass ceramic + zirconia filler, 215 MPa maximum biaxial flexural strength, 10.5 GPa flexural modulus, 13.5 translucency parameter for A1, four-minute post-cure, no glaze/oven, and indications for definitive single crowns, inlays/onlays, and single veneers. SprintRay launched the material in the U.S. on September 1, 2026.