One dental laboratory has stopped looking for denture teeth options after going with Primotec’s REF-LINE.
There seems to be something special about those who get really excited about producing great dentures. Not everyone can deliver truly great dentures and not everyone seems to even have the desire to do so.
But for those who really do want the best and have the passion, the end results can be outstanding, both in terms of esthetics as well as function.
Jeremiah Naas from Inverness Dental Arts in Maine runs a high end removable laboratory with his wife, and he is one of those who just so happens to want the dentures he produces to be the very best. Naas has been in the dental laboratory business for over 20 years, but moved from Florida to Waterville, Maine last year to become a denturist.
“If you have passion for esthetics, it’s exciting times [to work with dentures],” he says. “I feel that a lot of other people just find it to be frustrating, but it’s not really if you really stick to your protocols and you do some education.”
Primotec’s REF-LINE premium denture teeth are formulated from a new composite acrylic material that maximizes strength while providing optimal esthetic qualities. Features include a warm intensive cervical, light enamel color and diverse surface structure to give the teeth a lifelike appearance. The incisal portion of the tooth consists of small irregularities and details similar to natural teeth.
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With this in mind, Inverness Dental Arts has been exclusively using the REF-LINE denture teeth from Primotec. These teeth are made from a new composite acrylic material that is composed of pre-cross-linked polymer and the matrix is reinforced by inorganic nano- and micro-fillers.
According to Primotec, when compared to conventional acrylic, the REF-LINE material offers improved resistance to the mechanical wear, good resistance to plaque adhesion, color stability, higher hardness, excellent polishing properties, and good adhesion to denture base materials.
Having worked with his father’s high-production laboratory before starting his own business, Naas has seen and worked with many denture teeth lines. But the more cases he worked on, the more passion he had for making great dentures, not just good ones.
“I started to really scrutinize my denture teeth to the point where I would hold them up to the light and really try to see into the tooth,” he says. “I found by doing that, by really paying attention, that some companies would have manufacturing errors in their teeth.
“A lot of people don’t recognize it, take the time to see it, or they simply accept it being there. But I was always one of those people that just never was willing to accept that.”
Then a friend and respected lab technician, Arian Deutsch, CDT, told Naas about the great esthetics he was getting from REF-LINE.
“That’s how I first got introduced to the teeth, through photos and talking about cases with Arian, and I tried them out,” he says. “I quickly just fell in love with them. They’re very strong teeth, and they have a unique, very natural look to them.”
Naas has continued using the REF-LINE moulds simply because he likes what he sees in his patients’ mouths.
“Because my patients and prosthodontists are very heavily sharing photos, we get to see it even on a laboratory side, and we get to see our end result quite often,” he says. “I have yet to find any complaints from people at all.”
He loves to hear doctors tell him how happy they are with the end result and wonder how long it took his lab to create and deliver such great dentures.
“I’ve actually had a couple doctors tell me, ‘Wow you did it. You did an amazing job with this and you must have been working on it forever’,” says Naas, who adds that using REF-LINE is helping set his laboratory apart from others.
REF-LINE is designed to provide great anatomy for restorations, and both patients and dentists have noticed. The teeth are well-suited for both implant cases and traditional dentures and are said to deliver esthetics similar to porcelain crowns.
“They’re definitely not the only high-quality line of teeth out there so I don’t want to make that claim,” Naas says.“But I do find that, as a laboratory that is trying to set themselves apart from other labs, that these teeth were not as commonly used. And when clients start seeing these teeth…there’s something different about them. It’s been a great thing just to have a little bit more of a unique tooth to use.”
Naas also likes the way the mould guide has been set up by Primotec, making it easy to use and understand.
“It’s the little details at the end of the day,” he says. “There are so many small things that are above and beyond.”
