An Effective Ceramic Polishing Technique

4 min readDec 18, 2023

In Everyday Practice

Placing permanent ceramic restorations in our patients’ mouths is an everyday occurrence for the restorative dentist. These restorations help to restore lost tooth structure, stabilize the occlusion, replace missing teeth, and improve esthetics. The final surface texture must be smooth and polished for patient comfort and to prevent damage to opposing teeth.

The critical parts of finalizing the restoration are ensuring an excellent fit, proper occlusal contacts, desensitization of the prep, proper cementation, and cleanup. The provisional restoration is removed from the tooth and the provisional cement is removed from the tooth surface. The tooth preparation must be adequately cleaned. This is best accomplished with sandblasting the tooth structure with 27-micron aluminum oxide in a micro etcher to ensure clean healthy enamel and dentin surfaces, which will improve bond strength.

All residual cement must be removed and one must prevent tooth desiccation prior to final cementation. Attention is then directed to the occlusal surface. If the occlusion is too low, this would be evident during the try-in phase. At this point, additional ceramic material should be added to the occlusal surface to ensure proper centric stops and no drifting of opposing teeth. This may involve returning the restoration to the lab. However, when the occlusion is too high, adjustments must be finalized to obtain a highly polished surface. A rough surface can collect stain, become an irritation to the tongue and more importantly cause abnormal wear on the opposing teeth. It has been shown that even a glazed surface from the lab can cause unwanted opposing tooth wear. A hand polished surface is best. The following is a polishing bur that is very effective in achieving a highly polished surface on the porcelain restoration chairside.

The anterior & posterior polishers from MR.BUR are an excellent choice for polishing Zirconia, Lithium Disilicate and many other ceramic surfaces. The polisher really is an “all surface access polisher” because the feather edge of the disks allows polishing the smooth surfaces and into deep grooves & crevices.

The polishers include diamond impregnated wheel smoothing (blue), pre-polishers (pink) and final polishers for high shine (grey). The polishers take only about 30 seconds for a high shine. The smoothing, pre-polishers and final polishers can then be autoclaved to be reused. They have excellent longevity and a low wear rate, allowing them to be used on many patients and many restorations. Other uses of these polishers are everyday composite restorations, provisional crowns, removable and fixed hybrid prosthesis.

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