Shehu→Services
Specifications, turnarounds and what we need on the prescription.
Written for the person filling in the prescription, not for a brochure. If something here does not cover your case, call the bench and ask.
Crowns & bridges
Monolithic zirconia where strength decides it, layered zirconia or lithium disilicate where the patient will see it. Frameworks up to 14 units on one arch.
- Turnaround
- [TODO: turnaround]
- Rush
- [TODO: rush turnaround and surcharge]
- Minimum wall
- 0.5 mm monolithic
- Guarantee
- [TODO: guarantee terms]
Where each material earns its place
- Monolithic 5Y zirconia for posterior units, bruxists and anything under a heavy load. Nothing to chip off it.
- Layered 3Y zirconia for anterior crowns and bridges where you need translucency but the span rules out glass ceramic.
- Lithium disilicate for single anterior units with good bonding conditions. Still the most honest-looking material we have.
- Pressed and cut-back when the case needs individual characterisation rather than a shade tab.
What we need from you
- A continuous, readable margin. A chamfer or a shoulder both work. A feather edge on zirconia does not.
- 1.0 mm occlusal clearance for monolithic, 1.5 mm where we are layering.
- The opposing arch, scanned or impressed. Without it we are guessing at the occlusion.
- Shade taken before the prep, on a hydrated tooth, and told to us as a guide name, not a description.
One prescription note that saves the most cases
Write down whether you want the contacts tight or passive, and whether you are cementing or bonding. Those two lines change how we finish the unit and they are the two most common reasons a crown needs chair time.
- Flexural strength
- 3Y 1,200 MPa · 5Y 850 MPa · e.max 500 MPa
- Milling tolerance
- ±12 µm at the margin
- Sinter shrinkage
- Compensated at 1.202 oversize
- Cement gap
- 0.05 mm, adjustable on request
- Contact strength
- 25 µm closed, verified with 8 µm foil
- Max span
- 14 units, one arch, zirconia only
Zirconia arrives sandblasted on the intaglio and ready for a 10-MDP primer. If you are cementing conventionally, say so and we leave the surface rougher. Lithium disilicate arrives etched and in a protective sleeve, so do not sandblast it at the chair.
Every unit is glazed, not polished-only, unless you ask for a polished occlusal surface for an opposing denture.
If the unit does not seat, send it back with the model and tell us what you saw. A remake from a lab error is free and jumps the queue at 48 hours. A remake from a changed prep is charged at half, because the work is genuinely new.
Milling centre
We mill for other laboratories and for clinics with their own chairside workflow. Send the design and we cut it, or send the case and we do both. Same machines, same operator, either way.
- Input
- Open STL, PLY or DCM
- Turnaround
- [TODO: turnaround]
- Design
- Optional — send it designed or we design it
- For
- Laboratories and clinics
How laboratories and clinics use the mill
- You design, we mill. Send the finished STL and we cut it on our machines. You keep the design work and the patient relationship.
- You scan, we do the rest. Send the raw scan and the prescription, and the case comes back finished.
- Overflow capacity. For laboratories whose own mill is down or fully booked. Call before you send a full week of work so we can schedule it.
- Printed models and appliances. Resin models, try-ins and printed work alongside the milled units.
What we need from you
- An open-format file. STL, PLY or DCM. Closed or encrypted exports from a locked system cannot be milled by anyone but that system.
- The material and shade, written down. We will not guess at a disc for someone else’s case.
- Your preferred cement gap, if you have one. Otherwise we use ours.
- A contact number, in case the file will not mill as sent.
If you already design your own cases
Send the file and nothing else. You do not have to hand over the case, the patient or the prescription to use the mill — plenty of laboratories send us only the units they cannot cut themselves.
- File formats
- STL, PLY, DCM
- Design software
- Any that exports an open mesh
- Materials
- Zirconia, lithium disilicate, PMMA, wax
- Printing
- Resin models, try-ins, appliances
- Machines
- [TODO: mill makes and models]
Your case sheet comes back with the case. We do not contact your client, and we do not put our name on work that leaves under yours.
Pricing for laboratories is per unit and per material. Call or email for the current sheet.
Implant restorations
Screw-retained and cement-retained crowns, custom abutments, milled bars and full-arch work. We buy original components and we do not substitute them quietly.
- Turnaround
- [TODO: turnaround]
- Full arch
- 18 to 21 days
- Systems
- 14 platforms in stock
- Guarantee
- [TODO: guarantee terms]
What we make
- Screw-retained crowns on a titanium base, layered or monolithic zirconia, with the screw channel placed where you can actually reach it.
- Custom abutments milled in titanium, with the emergence profile designed against the soft-tissue scan rather than guessed.
- Milled bars for overdentures, with locator or Multi-Unit attachments.
- Full-arch fixed in zirconia or a titanium bar, with a printed try-in stage before anything final is made.
What we need from you
- The exact system, platform and diameter. Not the brand alone. A 4.1 mm regular neck is not a 4.8 mm wide neck.
- A scan body scan plus a scan of the tissue with the healing abutment out, taken within a few minutes of removal.
- Angulation and depth if you already know the screw channel will be awkward.
- Whether the case is immediate load, because the design and the material change.
We will not restore an implant we cannot identify
If the platform is unclear from the scan and the notes, we call you before ordering parts. Guessing a platform is how a practice ends up paying twice and a patient loses a morning.
- Ti base bond
- Panavia V5, 24 h cure, torque tested
- Screw torque
- Per manufacturer, printed on the case sheet
- Scan bodies
- Verified libraries only, no generic files
- Bar milling
- Grade 5 titanium, one piece
Full-arch cases run in four appointments: verification jig, printed try-in, bisque or framework try-in, then delivery. Skipping the try-in stage is possible and we will do it if you ask, but the remake risk moves onto the practice.
Veneers
The work our ceramist would rather be doing. Feldspathic porcelain built on a refractory die when the case needs real depth, pressed ceramic when it needs strength.
- Turnaround
- [TODO: turnaround]
- Minimum thickness
- 0.3 mm
- Try-in
- Printed model included
- Guarantee
- [TODO: guarantee terms]
Indications
- Six or eight-unit aesthetic cases where the incisal third has to look layered rather than painted.
- Discoloured single teeth next to healthy neighbours, which is the hardest thing in this laboratory to get right.
- Minimal or no-prep cases from 0.3 mm, on enamel, bonded.
- Diastema closure and incisal edge rebuilds where composite has already failed once.
What we need from you
- Photographs. Full face, retracted, and one with a grey card. A shade tab alone cannot carry an anterior case.
- The stump shade of the prepared teeth, especially if one is dark.
- A scan or impression of the wax-up if you have already agreed a shape with the patient.
- Whether the patient has approved the incisal edge position.
Send the photographs before you prep, not after
Once the teeth are cut, the information about the original shape and the way the enamel breaks up light is gone. Ten minutes of photographs beforehand is the difference between a good case and a case that gets remade.
- Firings
- 3 to 5 per unit
- Refractory
- Used above 4 units or below 0.5 mm
- Etch
- Pre-etched, sleeved, do not sandblast
- Shade check
- After every firing, D65 booth
Removable prosthetics
Complete dentures set to a real bite rather than an average one, milled and printed partials, and implant overdentures that come off without a fight.
- Complete denture
- 4 stages, 18 days
- Cobalt-chrome partial
- 14 working days
- Repairs
- Same day before 11:00
- Guarantee
- [TODO: guarantee terms]
What we make
- Complete dentures in injection-moulded PMMA, with a gothic arch tracing stage if the patient has no reliable centric.
- Cobalt-chrome partials from a milled framework, designed on the scan with your rest seats marked.
- Printed partials and try-ins for patients who need to see it before they believe it.
- Implant overdentures on locators or a milled bar, with the retention set to what the patient can actually manage.
What we need from you
- A bite we can trust. A wax record that has been through a warm car is worse than none.
- Rest seat and undercut survey for partials, or tell us to design them and we will send the plan back for approval.
- Tooth mould and shade, plus the patient age. A 34-year-old and a 78-year-old do not get the same setup.
- Any old prosthesis the patient liked. It tells us more than the prescription does.
Send the old denture, even if it is broken
Patients judge a new denture against the one they got used to. We copy what worked in the old one, in the lip support and the arch form, and change only what has to change.
- Stage 1
- Special trays from primary impressions, 2 days
- Stage 2
- Bite blocks on the master casts, 3 days
- Stage 3
- Wax try-in, set to the record, 4 days
- Stage 4
- Processed, finished and polished, 5 days
Clear aligners
Planned, printed and thermoformed here, so the practice keeps the case and the margin. You approve the plan before a single model is printed.
- Plan back to you
- 3 working days
- Per set of 10
- 10 working days
- Step size
- 0.25 mm / 2° rotation
- Included
- 2 retainers per arch
Suited to
- Mild to moderate crowding, up to about 5 mm per arch without extractions.
- Relapse cases after fixed appliances, which are usually 8 to 14 steps.
- Pre-restorative alignment to get a tooth into a position where a veneer becomes conservative.
- Retention, including replacement retainers from a stored scan without a new appointment.
What we need from you
- Full-arch scans of both arches plus a bite scan, with the tissue captured 2 mm past the gingival margin.
- Your treatment objective in one line. Aligning is not the same instruction as levelling.
- Whether IPR is acceptable and how much, and whether you want attachments.
- Radiographs if there is any history of root resorption or bone loss.
The plan is yours to change
You get a staged plan with the movement per step before we print anything. Nothing is manufactured until you approve it in writing, and revisions to the plan are not charged.
- Sheet
- Zendura FLX 0.76 mm, Duran+ 0.75 mm for retainers
- Models
- Asiga Max UV, 50 µm layers
- Trim
- Scalloped 0.5 mm above the gingival margin
- Attachments
- Template supplied per stage
Digital design
Design-only work for practices that mill chairside, plus smile design and printed diagnostic wax-ups for cases you need to sell to a patient before you cut anything.
- Single unit design
- 24 hours
- Full arch design
- 48 hours
- Output
- STL, PLY, DCM, constructionInfo
- Revisions
- Two included
What you get back
- A milling-ready file for your unit, with the parameters set for the material and the machine you actually run.
- Screenshot sets of the design from four angles, for the patient record or the case discussion.
- Printed diagnostic wax-ups and mock-up shells for chairside try-ins.
- Smile design worked from your photographs against the facial midline and the lip line.
What we need from you
- The scan, unmodified. Send the raw file rather than one already trimmed in your own software.
- Your machine and material, because the cement gap and the sprue position depend on both.
- The margin marked if you want it exactly where you drew it, otherwise we will mark it and show you.
Design files are yours
You get the native project file as well as the STL, so a second lab or your own mill can pick the case up without starting again.
- Cement gap
- Set per machine, 0.03 to 0.08 mm
- Sprue
- Placed on the least visible surface, marked in the file
- Libraries
- Verified implant and scan-body libraries only
- Transfer
- Encrypted link, files held 11 years
Something not covered here?
Call the bench and describe the case. If we cannot make it well, we will say so and suggest who can.