CEREC Tessera, Finally!!

So good morning everybody. I wanted to share a quick video with you today. In the mail last week I got some information about the new Seric Tessera block, and I'm assuming I'm pronouncing that right, and I like that pronunciation because it sounds like Tesseract from, you know, the Avengers movies. Anyway, Seric Tessera. Looks like a lot of fun. Anyway, I got this brochure kind of explaining what's going on with Tessera, some of the strength and stuff. All that jazz. And then a little programming guide, processing guide, for how to set up your oven. You know, for those of you that have a speed fire that should set it up on its own. For me, I have a CS and a CS4 oven. Here's the preparation guidelines for bonded and for not bonded, and some glazing and firing protocols. And then it gets you into this page right here. General firing parameters for third-party ovens. And then the bonding protocols down here. Anyway, real self-explanatory. So I've gone ahead and programmed our oven, the CS, and it fired a couple of them. Really great. This is kind of a cover letter that came with it. Basically it is, please test this. Let us know what you think. Looks really exciting. Here are the blocks. You know, I think I got some A1s and A2s. Let's see if it'll focus their form. Anyway, got some A1s and A2s. They're really nice colored blocks. They've got the QR codes. For those of us with a Prime Mail, you can scan it now. That's assuming you've downloaded the firmware update. There was a firmware issue, which some of you may be dealing with now, with this particular block included in that problem. You'd scan it, you'd load it, it'd start the touch process and give you a cam error. But you could bypass that by programming it manually, you know, entering Tessera on the color and the size. But the scanning process was messed up until we downloaded that firmware update. So it's been fine now. So let me kind of walk you through my two trials. So this is trial number one. Let's see if it'll focus. Sorry, I'm on my iPad right now. This one was not polished very well. I just wanted to see how the staining process worked, and obviously I did not put enough glaze paste in there. There's too much glaze liquid, so it's still kind of rough, not really shiny. But my second attempt is a lot prettier, a lot more cosmetic. So my process, as it is with Emacs, is really just using polishing wheels. Now if I need to put some characterization in it, I'll do some staining. I normally don't put much glaze on there, as you know, evidenced with that poorly glazed one. I normally polish, and this is just polished with a Meisinger gray wheel on a low-speed handpiece, a lab handpiece that we have in our in our lab. But it's really nice. It's very pretty, very aesthetic. I like it a lot. Now in addition to that that came in, we also got a little firing honeycomb with a firing pad. So when you fire the crowns after they're polished or glazed, the instructions, if I read them correctly, are to pile it to fire on the honeycomb, on the pad, on the occlusal surface. Now if you're working upper anterior, you lay it on the facial, so the lingual is up. If you are working on a premolar that won't sit on the occlusal, lay it on the side, obviously. But the goal, my understanding is, you just don't want to have it on the margins because there's some potential that that margin may bend under the weight of the crown when it's at firing temperature. But this is one of the big pluses to this material. You don't need object fix. You don't need the, what do we use, super pig? So it's a little less goopy and gross, but still the same process for cleaning it out. I am going to try a few of these and some patients here over the next few days, and I'll see if I can get your report back. But I really do like the material. One thing I will notice, I will point out to you, is it's a lot harder to polish. You know, my normal polishing process with Emacs goes pretty quickly. With this, it's a little more intentional. I mean, I took a little more time, is what I'm trying to say, to polish. So a little more time to polish, and speaking of time, the milling for one of these guys in my prime mill was 21 minutes, and that's for a pretty standard molar crown, right? 21 minutes of milling time. That's in a prime mill. I haven't done it in the MCXL yet. I'll try that in the MCXL and see what time it is. But that's actual milling time, was 21 minutes. It's possible we got some dull burrs. I'm not sure. We'll try it out and let you know. The firing time in my program at CS was about 12 minutes, which is a little better than the Emacs firing cycle, which is 14 and a half, but certainly a far cry longer than, you know, the Speedfire. So when you add up the time, you've got, you know, a 12-minute firing cycle with a new tester on the CS. I'm talking about my time. Your time may be different. Plus a 21-minute milling cycle, that's about 33 minutes, whereas with our Emacs, current Emacs protocol, you know, the milling is 13 to 15 minutes. The firing is 14 minutes. So it's a net six minutes slower to use the CEREC Tessera currently in my current setting based on limited trials, you know, with potentially dull burrs in the prime mill. But there are some pros. You know, the material seems, based on the information that's come out, seems to be much stronger. It seems to have a much more stable, of course, color, you know. It doesn't change color when it's fired, so it's easier to pick shades. Anyway, that's a big plus. And then the strength, of course. They, you know, talk about, they really tout that we're really concerned about strength in materials and how strong the material is, so some good pluses there. But it is a little bit longer in my current setup, and we'll see what the CS4 oven firing time looks like. Anyway, so that's what I've got for you today. Again, I'll try to report back and give you some feedback on the new CEREC Tessera blocks once we've had a chance to put a few in some patients. I know Dr. Patel's put a few in there, and there are other docs on the Keep CERECing Facebook group that have been thrown on some Tessera blocks that seem to be having a good experience with them. I'll let you know what my experience is, but I'm pretty excited to try it out. So, thank you for watching. See you later.