Shehu→How we work
One case, seven stations, start to finish.
This is the exact route a single crown takes from your chair to your delivery box. Scroll it, or press play and let it run for a minute.
Step 01 / 07 · Scan arrives
Your scan lands in the lab
Digital cases arrive as an STL, PLY or DCM straight out of your scanner, with no conversion step in between. Physical impressions are disinfected, logged and photographed at the door, so there is a record of the state they arrived in.
- Who
- Fatjon Shehu
- In the lab
- Logged on arrival
- You do
- Attach the prescription and the shade. Nothing else.
- You get
- A case number by email as soon as it is logged
Step 02 / 07 · Case review
A technician reads the case before anything is made
Someone who will actually work on the case checks that the margin is continuous and readable, that there is clearance for the material you asked for, and that the prescription matches what the scan shows.
If it will not work, you get a phone call on the same day. That call is the cheapest part of the whole case.
- Who
- Fatjon Shehu
- In the lab
- Queried within 2 hours, same working day
- You do
- Answer if we call. We only call when it matters.
- Query rate
- [TODO: how often a case raises a query]
Step 03 / 07 · Digital design
The restoration is designed against your own scan
Anatomy, emergence profile and proximal contacts are built in exocad on your scan of the opposing arch, then checked on the digital articulator through the full excursion, not just in centric.
You see a screenshot set before anything is cut. One line back from you is enough to change it.
- Who
- Fatjon Shehu, CAD
- In the lab
- 3 to 6 hours of design, inside day 1 or 2
- You do
- Approve the preview, or send one line of changes.
- You get
- Four screenshots, plus the STL if you ask for it
Step 04 / 07 · Milling
Cut wet from a disc with a batch number
Zirconia is milled oversize from a pre-sintered disc, because the material shrinks about a fifth in the furnace and the design has to allow for it. Lithium disilicate is milled soft and crystallised afterwards. Models and castable patterns print on the Asiga overnight.
The disc lot number is written into your case file at this point, and stays with it for eleven years.
- Who
- Fatjon Shehu, milling
- In the lab
- 40 to 90 minutes per unit, usually overnight
- You do
- Nothing.
- Logged
- Disc lot, tool hours, machine, operator
Step 05 / 07 · Sinter & layer
Nine hours in the furnace, then built up by hand
The milled unit goes into the furnace at 1,530 °C and comes out a fifth smaller and fully dense. Then the part no machine does: dentin, enamel and glaze applied in thin coats, fired between each one, with the shade read in the light booth after every firing.
Three to five firings is normal for an anterior unit. A molar in monolithic zirconia takes one.
- Who
- Fatjon Shehu, ceramics
- In the lab
- Day 3 to day 4, 3 to 5 firings
- You do
- Nothing, unless you asked for a bisque try-in.
- Logged
- Every furnace cycle curve saved to the case
Step 06 / 07 · Quality control
It only leaves if it passes on the model
The unit is seated on the printed model, proximal contacts read with 8 micron foil, occlusion checked against your opposing scan, and the entire margin inspected at 10x magnification.
Anything with a visible ledge, an open contact or a high spot goes back to the bench. It does not go into the box with a note about it.
- Who
- Fatjon Shehu
- In the lab
- 25 minutes per unit
- You do
- Nothing.
- First pass
- [TODO: first-pass rate, if you track it]
Step 07 / 07 · Delivery
Back to your clinic, tracked
The case is boxed with its case sheet and its material batch numbers, and goes back to your clinic in [TODO: N] working days. Courier coverage runs across Albania, and to [TODO: countries served], tracked, with the number emailed to the practice the moment it leaves.
If it needs an adjustment at the chair, tell us what you changed. That is how the next one gets closer.
- Who
- Dispatch
- In the lab
- In your practice in [TODO: N] working days
- You do
- Seat it. Tell us if anything needed adjusting.
- Guarantee
- [TODO: guarantee terms]
← → step · space play / pause · esc exit
That is the whole route, from your chair to the box.
Send your first caseSend a first single-unit case and judge the margin and the shade on your own patient before you move any volume.