I have always thought it would be a good idea to do an educational video that focused strictly on restorative repairs, but this has proven to be a more difficult program to put together than I expected. It’s not as if fractured ceramic restorations walk through the door every day, yet when they do, it sure is nice to have a good solution. So I thought the next best thing would be a pair of articles on repairs from Dr. Robert Lowe, a frequent contributor to Chairside^®.

In Part 1, Bob shows you how he repairs a broken PFM restoration with a porcelain veneer, or more specifically, how he gives new life to an old PFM by “resurfacing” it with a porcelain veneer. This strategy works well when the metal substructure is not completely exposed.

In Part 2, Bob makes use of a “saddle crown” to cover a fully exposed metal substructure, which he has prepared to give the saddle crown adequate strength and esthetics. This technique can be extremely helpful when you have completed a large anterior bridge, for example, and something chips or breaks within the first year.

The other thing that made me abandon the idea of putting together a video on repairs is the shrinking number of repairs I’ve had to do since becoming a predominately “monolithic” dentist. In other words, I use a lot of IPS e.max^® in the anterior and a lot of BruxZir^® Solid Zirconia in the posterior, and I just don’t see either of these restorations fracturing.

Even though I haven’t done a single-unit PFM in years, I still use PFMs for bridges. As any bilayered restoration has the potential for those layers to separate, Bob’s repair techniques will continue to be useful for the foreseeable future.