Titanium: Standardized Techniques For Success

By knowing your product and standardizing your techniques—and sticking to them—you can be successful in processing titanium restorations.

A variety of factors are contributing to titanium's rising popularity: it's now classified by the ADA between a noble and high noble alloy and, as the precious metal market continues to hit record prices, titanium is an attractive alternative. In addition, CAD/CAM techniques have eliminated the problems associated with casting titanium.

Our lab has been working with titanium for almost three years and, during that time, we have studied clinical data and manufacturer recommendations, tested various techniques and finishing burs and discs, and conducted R&D on CAD-designed titanium frames.
The following standardized techniques for processing porcelain-fused-to-titanium (PFT) restorations have yielded consistent results in our lab.

Standardize Firing Parameters

All temperatures...