Choosing the Best Zirconia Pucks for Dental Milling

Zirconia has become the material of choice for modern dental restorations, combining strength, biocompatibility, and aesthetics to deliver long-lasting, natural-looking results. Whether you’re fabricating crowns, bridges, or full-arch restorations, selecting the right zirconia blocks or pucks for your milling machine is essential for achieving precision and quality.

This guide explores tips for choosing zirconia blocks and pucks for dental milling, including when to use and how to choose.

Why Zirconia is the Gold Standard in Dental Restorations

Zirconia (zirconium dioxide) stands out as a versatile dental material thanks to its unique combination of properties:

• High Strength: Zirconia’s exceptional flexural strength (up to 1,200 MPa) makes it ideal for load-bearing restorations like crowns and bridges.
• Biocompatibility: Non-toxic and bio-inert, zirconia is safe for long-term use in the oral cavity.
• Aesthetics: Modern multilayered zirconia mimics the translucency and natural shade of enamel, making it suitable for esthetic anterior restorations.
• Low Wear: Zirconia restorations are durable and resist wear, ensuring long-term functionality.

For dental milling, zirconia blocks and pucks provide a highly accurate and efficient solution for producing restorations that meet both functional and aesthetic demands.

Factors to Consider When Choosing Zirconia Blocks or Pucks

When selecting zirconia for dental milling, consider the following:

1. Monolithic vs. Multilayer:

   • Monolithic Zirconia: Single-layer, high-strength zirconia ideal for posterior restorations.
   • Multilayer Zirconia: Features gradient shading and translucency to replicate natural tooth aesthetics, perfect for anterior or full-arch restorations.

2. Strength and Translucency:

   • Higher-strength zirconia offers durability but may have reduced translucency.
   • Modern zirconia blends strength with enhanced translucency, offering excellent esthetics without compromising performance.

3. Compatibility:
   Ensure the zirconia block or puck is compatible with your dental milling machine (e.g., Roland, VHF, etc).

4. Applications:
   Consider the intended use—single crowns, multi-unit bridges, veneers, or full-arch prosthetics.

Tips for Milling Zirconia Blocks and Pucks

1. Choose the Right Sintering Schedule: Follow the manufacturer’s sintering guidelines to ensure optimal strength and translucency.
2. Calibrate Your Milling Machine: Regularly calibrate your dental mill to achieve precise cuts and avoid material wastage.
3. Use High-Quality Milling Tools: Invest in diamond-coated burs to improve milling accuracy and prolong tool life.
4. Optimize Material Selection: Use multilayered zirconia for esthetic cases and monolithic zirconia for posterior load-bearing applications.

OUR RECOMMENDATION FOR HIGH-QUALITY RESULTS

Here at Voxel, we're obsessed with providing the very best the market has to offer our customers, at an unbeatable value. 

That's why we choose to partner with manufacturers who share our obsession for quality products that drive quality results, such as Roland and vhf,, and when it comes to zirconia we recommend the globally-recognized brand AIDITE.

AIDITE brings over 25 years of experience in Zirconia R&D and production. Their extremely popular zirconia puck, the 3D Pro zir uses only 100% TOSOH powder, the finest quality raw material. These pucks are fabricated with the most advanced production processes, producing a layerless, natural shade gradient with optimal strength and translucency.

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