As D2s begin to dive into the fun that is Fixed Prosth, and D4s start refining their hand skills to practice for licensing exams we thought we’d review a couple things when doing an All Ceramic Crown Prep on an anterior maxillary tooth. Two things students often struggle with is maintaining that ideal 6-12° taper and a lingual wall height of 1-3mm. So let’s review:
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Taper:
1. Most burs that you will use for axial reduction have a manufacturer built in 6-12° taper already established.
2. When initiating breaking contact (shown here with a 856LOV Bur) try to keep the long axis of the bur parallel to the long axis of the tooth creating that ideal 6-12° taper.
Lingual Wall:
1. Before reducing axially around where your finish line and lingual wall will form, reduce the tooth on its lingual surface inside the cingulum and marginal ridges.
2. Using a 8379 Football Bur reduce the lingual surface of the tooth using the cingulum and marginal ridges as an outline, but still maintaining all of these structures.
3. Once you have reduced to about the width of the Football Bur (~1.2mm), not only will you have sufficient axial reduction but you will have maintained enough tooth structure necessary to form your ideal 1-3mm lingual wall when prepping the lingual finish line.
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Hopefully putting these practices to use will not only improve your hand skills, but allow you to pull off those ideal crown preps that you’ve been striving for!
