Step by step with primotec USA's primopattern LC – Easy, quick modeling

Dental cases have been modeled for decades mainly using various dental waxes or PMMA powder-liquid resins, but while offering decent results, this is truly a case where, “The best is the enemy of the good.”

What was once adequate is not always going to be the best option. With the advent of scanning, milling, pressing and other new dental lab techniques, the requirements of modern dental technology are changing. Just as these new methods and techniques open new options for dental labs, a modern modeling material also should have new, improved and user-friendly properties.

An advanced material that incorporates these properties is primopattern LC from primotec. This article will explain in detail how primopattern provides specific qualities that allow technicians or clinicians to easily and quickly model patterns in the dental lab or practice.

Previous methods

Dental sculpting waxes are well-established and certainly have many advantages, but their disadvantages also are well-established, and by now they are simply accepted. Technicians have come to terms with them.

Nevertheless, it is of course annoying if a bridge distorts unnoticed on removal, or if the wax retracts slightly from the metal surfaces of the primary crowns or abutments in the marginal region, or when a different wax must be used for every imaginable indication, and especially if there is not a suitable wax available for specific applications such as contact scanning. primopattern LC was developed to eliminate these inconvenient disadvantages of conventional modeling materials.

The new material

primopattern is a light-curing, ready-to-use, one-component material that is available as a modeling gel or modeling paste. As a universal composite material in two consistencies it can therefore be used for virtually all conventional as well as modern laboratory applications.

01 In the form of a modeling gel primopattern LC is easily and precisely applied directly from the dispensing syringe, almost in one step (Fig. A).

02 The viscosity of the gel is exactly preset and guarantees quick, precise modeling with high dimensional stability, ensuring that the gel applied does not run (Fig. B). primopattern gel is also thixotropic, meaning it flows more easily with vibration and stops as soon as the vibration ceases. These properties make primopattern LC Gel ideal for use in attachment and telescope crown cases such as the one illustrated in Figures C, D and E.

03 Other areas of application include the entire range of fixed restorations as well as implant prosthetics. primopattern LC modeling paste (Fig. F) has a more kneadable consistency in comparison with the gel. This allows the material to be easily kneaded to the desired shape and adapted to fit the current situation.

04 The paste is designed to be used when larger amounts of material need to be applied quickly to model bars, pontics and other larger restoration elements. It can be combined with primopattern gel without any problem. For example, with bridge frameworks where the copings of abutment teeth have to be modeled first using primopattern gel, light cured and then prepared, the pontic-which is fabricated using primopattern LC paste-is then simply placed between the finished copings (Fig. G).

05 When necessary, the connectors can then be adjusted using additional gel (Fig. H). The gel ensures a good connection between both the polymerized copings and the paste.

Further areas of application for the combined use of paste and gel include:

• All types of implant work

• Frameworks for zirconia copy milling machines

• Tertiary frameworks over electroformed mesostructures

• Frameworks for electroformed bridges

• Finishing the pattern

06 Generally, primopattern can be polymerized in all conventional units with a light spectrum of 320 nm to 500 nm. primotec USA’s Metalight units (Fig. I) are particularly suitable for polymerizing primopattern designs, as they have a cooling function that enables the material to be polymerized more gently. The average polymerization time is between 1.5 and 5 minutes, depending on the light-curing unit.

During polymerization primopattern maintains its properties and dimensional stability. The material does not have any clinically relevant shrinkage and does not distort, even when it is polymerized in stroboscope units. It is very satisfying how perfectly the patterns fit following polymerization without having to separate and reconnect patterns or insert relief cuts.

Accuracy of fit and stability of the patterns are therefore very basic requirements for the success of laboratory work, particularly with implant bridges ­
(Fig. J) and bars.

07 In both cases the implant abutments and copings over the abutments are modeled very effectively with primopattern gel and the pontics and bars with primopattern paste (Fig. K).

08 The light-cured patterns should be trimmed and finished with cross-cut carbide burs or rubber polishers.

Conclusion

As primopattern burns out cleanly and completely without residue, it allows the technician to decide whether the pattern should be sprued and cast, scanned, copy milled or pressed after the model has already been created.

Taking everything into consideration primopattern LC is an advanced modeling material that meets all the requirements of modern dental technology and is completely universal.

About the author

Joachim Mosch completed his dental technology and commercial training in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He was then employed for 18 years in the European headquarters of an American dental company, the last 10 years of which was in a general management position. In 2000 he founded his own companies primotec and primodent. As the innovative engine of the company, together with his team, he develops new products, technologies and procedures that help increase the quality and efficiency of dental and laboratory work compared with conventional methods. Joachim Mosch has published numerous articles on dental technology topics in the best-known dental journals. He is an international lecturer with various innovative contents.