Hand Instruments can also be used for crown preparations, In 2 areas in particular.

• Occlusal Surface
• Margins

When working on the shoulder margin though, be careful not to get rid of the rounded internal line angle and make it acute. So only apply the hand instrument to the outer side of the shoulder. You may use an end cutting bur, but do not focus it on using on that irregular portion only because you may end up gouging that area instead. Do glide the bur in wide sections, as if sweeping the bumps away.

Hand instruments, such as hatchet and bin-angle chisel, are helpful in defining the occlusal anatomy. It can also smoothen any irregularities.

Of Polishing The Crown Surface

There a lot of inquiries about using polishing burs like ultrafine or fine grit burs to polish the crown surfaces. Before answering that we need to first talk how crowns are installed and retained on the crown. Crowns are cemented on the tooth. It needs a lot of friction to allow it to stay in place. As you can notice, using course burs will leave a streaky rough interface behind on the surface of the prepared crown. These “streaks” interface provides the friction and a lot of surface area in which the cement could attach to. If you are polishing the surface, it has no benefit at all, you actually are promoting for the crown to slip off because you already removed the grip (or the friction) that the streaky interface was supposed to provide for.

Moreover, using a diamond bur leaves a rough surface as opposed to using a carbide bur where it leaves a rather smooth surface. So it isn’t really a problem that your prepared crown surface is rough because naturally that is how a diamond bur really works.

Full Gold Crowns

Add Finishing and Hand Instrumentation

Metal Ceramic Crowns

Add Finishing video

Add Hand Instrumentation and Refinement