Information provided by Whip Mix Corp.

is a fully programmable, multi-phase sintering furnace designed to give labs years of dependable service, user flexibility and consistency.

Each program parameter can be modified to address the specifications of dental zirconia, such as temperatures, delayed starts and ramp rates. The ZR furnace features Thermal Web Technology that enables the muffle to catch and reflect the infrared heat in a more diffused pattern for more even heating. The furnace uses Silicon Carbide heating rods in order to assure proper and complete zirconia sintering to ensure ideal results for a variety of indications.


	Working temperature: 1550°C (2822°F)
	30 working user-defined programs
	Designed for even heat distribution
	Start delay time of up to eight hours
	Stack up to three trays (average 60 units at a time)
	1-4 Stages
	Made in the USA by 

This article originally appeared in the April 2014 issue of Dental Lab Products. For more great articles about products in action, 

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Articles

 The Infinity ZR sintering furnace is a fully programmable, multi-phase sintering furnace designed to give labs years of dependable service, user flexibility and consistency.

A Better Way to Sinter

	Technology has advanced rapidly over the past 40 years. Today we equate new technologies with CAD/CAM advances, milling, wax printing, scanners and other digital equipment. The lab industry has even developed a new language for the computer age. Words like splines, collision lines, wall heights and many others are routine conversation in a growing number of labs.

	What is less obvious-but as important-is the technological evolution of the porcelain furnace. Forty years ago we used analog furnaces with features such as a photo sensor temperature dial that was sensitive to light sources and would sometimes cause firing failures. The muffle designs and materials used for their manufacture were not of the quality we have in furnaces today. Porcelain furnaces give us accuracy and consistency in our porcelain that was unachievable with the furnaces of 40 years ago.

	The Whip Mix Pro Press 200 is our laboratory’s furnace of choice because it is factory calibrated at three temperature levels using a second thermocouple and an Omega Meter.

	In this article, I will demonstrate how to set up the firing programs once the ideal porcelain maturation is determined. Porcelain manufacturers’ firing charts are recommended starting points. Manufacturers advise that vitality, surface texture, surface shine and detail should be used to determine porcelain maturation. GC America states that these firing parameters only should be considered a guide. Other manufacturers have similar statements. For this reason, the porcelain furnace needs to be temperature-adjusted to compensate for the difference between what is simply a starting point and what is the desired maturation. Those parameters will be set in the furnace using a feature unique to the Pro 200 Furnace. I also will show how to synchronize the porcelain maturation and the temperature dial using the high or low fusing porcelain calibration feature (also unique to this furnace series).

 Porcelain tabs should be placed on a double honeycomb tray so as to fire in the same zone as porcelain every time. This is the calibration zone for the furnace. Note: there are other contributing factors that can affect porcelain firings, such as porcelain condensation, tray materials, vacuum, rate of climb, environmental conditions, etc., but for purposes of this article we will only focus on porcelain maturation. We use the GC porcelain system in our laboratory.
	Currently we use the GC Titanium, MC (metal ceramic), ZR, and the IQ One Body systems. We will use clear windows for the titanium calibration, CLF for the MC, ZR, and IQ One Body shaded material.

 The shade tabs were fabricated using the dry powder technique with a tapered tab maker that measures 1 mm at the thinnest edge to 2 mm at the thickest point. Apply porcelain using the dry powder technique 

 The fired tabs were placed adjacent to those that are fully matured 

. Notice the difference in porcelain vitality from left to right. The tabs in the first column on the left were fired according to the manufacturer’s firing chart temperatures. The other tabs are fired 50°C higher, to our desired porcelain maturation. Also notice the sharp 90° edge on the tabs as well as sharp details on the thin veneers of porcelain.

	When determining the proper maturation, we are looking for vitality as well as sharp detail. If you lose detail in the tabs, reduce the temperature approximately 10°, fire another tab and reevaluate.

	When properly fired, clear windows porcelain will let you read printed literature through it without the loss of sharp edges. CLF porcelains are not as transparent, but will still allow a diffused view of the printed literature.
	calibration programming

 The High Fusing or Low Fusing porcelain calibration screen is located under Special Functions 

. It allows a +/– 50°C adjustment. The adjustment is made after you determine the porcelain’s ideal porcelain maturation temperature. We determined the maturation we want is +50°C higher than the manufacturer’s recommended starting point. Therefore the High Fusing adjustment will be set +50°C. This provides the proper temperature offset so I can program and synchronize my readout screen with the porcelain manual’s firing chart.

 Next I enter the data from the chart or in the Master Suite feature of the Pro 200 furnace. With the +50°C offset entered, the manufacturer’s temperatures will be entered to synchronize the calibration and the readout screen. I can program all of my data in my computer, download it to a memory stick and plug it into multiple furnaces. This enables me to control the furnace firing parameters in the lab.

	Please note that titanium porcelains are low fusing, but the +50°C adjustment is made with the high fusing calibration parameters because the temperature adjustment exceeds the low fusing parameter of 805°C.

 We all want to fine tune different firing programs to achieve different levels of surface texture, sheen, and maybe even to raise or lower the glaze temperature for a specific account. You have the ability to customize each firing parameter to the desired temperature to achieve that result. There is a + or – 34°C available with this feature. This adjustment is found in each add/edit part of the program 

. Note that custom firing calibration is at the individual program level, enabling the ceramist to tweak each program individually. The 50°C offset adjustment affects all programs in that category of high fusing or low fusing porcelain.

 We loaded a full tray to show accuracy of firings from the outer edge of the tray to the center 

. The vitality is consistent and the 90° sharp edges remain on all tabs. Consistently accurate firings are clearly demonstrated.

 We polished the tabs from Figure. E and placed them over dual broken black and white lines on the firing tray for the visual evaluation 

. Note the sharp edges, and the uniform clarity that is exhibited from the center to outer edges of the tray. The Whip Mix Pro 200 furnaces provide consistently accurate and uniform firing of porcelain.

	We test fired other high fusing porcelains in the Pro 200 furnace and found they also needed to be adjusted by baseline porcelain calibration before programming the furnace. We tested Creation, IPS d.Sign, Shofu, VITA and Noritake ceramic systems. I test fired 10 systems and found an average offset similar to the GC line of porcelain. Your baseline calibration may vary and that is expected because ultimately, porcelain maturation is a visual determination that each technician has to make. Consistency with our porcelain starts with understanding the ceramic system’s parameters and programming that information into our furnace.

	This Pro 200 furnace is one of three Whip Mix furnaces in our lab. The program data is the same in all three. The features I discussed along with quality, customer service, warranty and price make this furnace ideal for any laboratory.

 Technology has advanced rapidly over the past 40 years. Today we equate new technologies with CAD/CAM advances, milling, wax printing, scanners and other digital equipment. The lab industry has even developed a new language for the computer age. Words like splines, collision lines, wall heights and many others are routine conversation in a growing number of labs.

Custom calibration

	Whip Mix now offers verification gages for Denar®, Hanau™ and Whip Mix® articulators. These gages, the Denar Mark 300 Series verification gage system, the Denar/Hanau verification gage system and the Whip Mix verification gage system, offer a quick way to verify articulators are in calibration, making it easy to transfer just the casts between compatible articulators. With articulators in calibration, technicians and clinicians may transfer just the casts between compatible articulators with confidence. By simply sliding a stainless steel pin through the device the user can quickly verify the accuracy of the articulator.

Tech Brief: Verification Gages

	Formulated and manufactured for each component of the waxing process, the InStep casting wax system is designed to ensure that waxes are compatible from blockout to final waxup. This reduces the chance of defects in your castings.

	The system contains four different waxes, with melting ranges designed to work with each other. They are: Blockout wax for filling undercuts; Margin wax for accurate margins; Dipping wax with enhanced margin visibility and uniform thickness; and Carving wax for consistent control during buildup and the ability to cut cleanly without stickiness or tackiness.

	Following are steps for using the InStep casting wax system.

 Before applying any wax, mark the preparation margin with a graphite-free pencil. Next apply InStep Blockout wax to the undercuts (Fig. A).

 Next apply two coats of PDQ Die Spacer. This provides the recommended 24 microns of space to relieve dies (Fig. B).

 You will then need to paint on a separating agent such as InStep Die Lube. This will keep the wax coping from adhering to the die.

 Next, hold the die by its dowel pin, and support your hand on the side of the wax pot with your little finger. Then dip the die, turning it quickly (Fig. C). Dip it to just below the prepped margin.

 Remove the die slowly, continuing to turn it. Hold briefly to let any excess wax drip off.

 Build up the distal surface using InStep Carving Wax (Fig. D). Its different color provides a nice visual cue when carving. Beige is used when die is going to be scanned.

 The contours of the buccal and palatal cusps now can be waxed up and shaped and the Dip wax carved away from the margin.

 InStep Margin Wax is then smoothed into the margin using a heated wax tool (Fig. E).

 At last, our wax coping is ready to be separated from the die, pattern and sprued (Fig. F) and burned out.

 Attach the sprue to the thickest portion of the waxup to provide optimum casting results (Fig. G). Fig. H shows the completed waxup.

	The InStep wax system has been formulated with compatible melting ranges designed to burnout “in step,” reducing the chance of costly defects and reworking of your castings. The ranges are: 135°F to 145°F (57°C to 63°C) for the Margin wax; 145°F to 155°F (63° to 68°C) for Carving wax; 170° to 180°F (77°C to 82°C) for Dipping wax; and 200°F to 210°F (93° to 99°C) for Blockout wax. The Quick Start Waxing Kit (Fig. I) makes it possible to try all the waxes without the expense of buying the full-size tins individually.

 Formulated and manufactured for each component of the waxing process, the InStep casting wax system is designed to ensure that waxes are compatible from blockout to final waxup. This reduces the chance of defects in your castings.