Nicki Lees talks to Julian English about the development of Bristol Crown and the characteristics of Vita dental materials.
At Bristol Crown, we started out as a traditional crown and bridge laboratory in 1986. We began providing a lab-to-lab service in 1993 with Inceram Alumina then progressing to Procera and Lava Zirconia products.
Since those early days, we have developed several of our own brands exclusive to Bristol Crown. These include Vitality, ZrSpeed, ZrAdvance, JustZr, Explore, Explore Plus and Vivid Hybrid.
In 2000 we decided that we wanted concentrate solely on developing our growing lab to lab service. We stopped working for dentists. This way we could give our all to providing the best service and support to our fellow technicians. Around 70% of our work is sent via our uploader portal as design files for milling. However, we still have many labs sending their models for us to design because they don’t have a scanner.
In addition our labs who haven’t gone down the digital route and don’t have a scanner can send us the intra oral scans they get. We can design, print 3D models and mill crowns for them to finish.
We have a fantastic team of dental technicians, CADCAM experts and administrators here that make up the business. They are what makes Bristol Crown so successful! We have built a solid reputation between us for providing quality products at fair prices to our customers, with exceptional service and support.
Experienced team
Until recently there were 7 members of the team in total, myself, Ben, Charlie, Kate, Marcello, Molly and Wendy. We are now 9 with the recent addition of Aleksandra and Thomas.
We are also milling partners with leading innovative dental companies that include Straumann, Medentika, Neodent, and Dynamic Abutment Solutions.
Between us we have a wealth of experience in CADCAM; continually researching, developing and testing new materials and products which we believe can be of benefit to our customers.
We have been offering Vita products for a couple of years. When we were approached by Vita earlier this year with a view to becoming the UK’s first official Vita Milling Centre we jumped at the chance. After rigorous testing by Vita for quality of workmanship and process reliability we are proud to say we were officially validated in June.
We will be concentrating initially on Vita Enamic and Suprinity. We can offer your first one as a freebie if you’d like to try either of these products.
Vita Enamic is a unique hybrid ceramic with a dual ceramic-polymer network structure available in both mono and multichromatic types in three translucency levels (T, HT, ST).
In this dental material, the dominant ceramic network is strengthened by a polymer network, with both networks fully integrated with one another. It combines the positive characteristics of a ceramic and a composite.
In addition to a high degree of elasticity, this innovative hybrid ceramic guarantees particularly high strength after adhesive bonding.
Vita Suprinity
Vita Suprinity PC is a new generation of glass ceramic material available as monochromatic blanks in two translucency levels (T, HT).
The results are the world’s first zirconia reinforced lithium silicate ceramic. This new glass ceramic features a particularly fine-grained and homogeneous structure which guarantees excellent material quality and consistent high load capacity, as well as long-term reliability.
It offers outstanding processing characteristics such as easy milling and polishing. High translucency, fluorescence and opalescence of this new glass ceramic material means that you can achieve aesthetically pleasing results.
We can guarantee a quality product with both of these for you and exceptional service if you send to us. Our team of dental and cadcam technicians are here to help you get the best from digital dentistry no matter what level of help you require. Milling of your designs, designing, 3D Printing and expert support all round etc, we are happy to help.
Please get in touch so we can set you up on our easy to use uploader portal, talk about sending models for design and to claim your free Vita Enamic or Vita Suprinity crown.
Telephone 0117 977 3593 or 07521 993293
This article first appeared in Laboratory magazine. You can read the latest issue here.
