Zirconium Crowns

Ok, you might need a crown. While it’s difficult to address your specific case without knowing more details, we can certainly tell you that there are significant differences among crowns. Unfortunately, many people get a basic restoration — tooth cap that will just make your tooth function again, with the aesthetics being not necessarily an ideal match. Today’s dentistry can do so much more.

There are different types of crowns available. Let’s take a look. And as you will see, quality has even more to do with artistry and skill than it does with materials and technology.

Transforming Your Tooth

As you may know, a crown entirely covers a tooth. This type of dental restoration might be needed if a tooth is fractured, badly decayed, worn, or needs a cosmetic makeover. First, we prepare your tooth to receive this type of restoration. A dentist will remove the decayed material from your tooth (if there is any), then shape the tooth to fit the new covering.

Then, with a putty-like material, we take an impression of the prepared tooth. We need it to create an exact model of the tooth that will get the crown and the teeth adjacent to it. This impression will be delivered to a dental laboratory. Just as you look for a dentist who makes you feel comfortable and whose work you respect, we look for the same qualities in a dental lab.

The lab can make a crown out of many different materials, which can be divided into two main categories: porcelain fused to metal and all-porcelain or ceramic.

Crown with metal base
If you look inside these dental crowns, you can see the metal substructure to which the porcelain is adhered for increased strength.

Porcelain Fused to a Metal Base (PFM)
While some crowns are made entirely of metal, crowns in the cosmetic zone – your smile – are covered by tooth-colored porcelain. While providing pleasing aesthetics, the original dental porcelains were quite brittle and prone to breakage if too much force was applied. PFM (porcelain-fused-to-metal) crowns were developed to increase strength – a metal base was covered by tooth-colored white porcelain. PFM crowns were the most widely used type of crown until recently. It has been changed. Newer dental ceramics have become available, and they don’t require a metal substructure — which can be visible through the porcelain in a PFM crown, giving it a gray or dark appearance, particularly at the gum line.