At the chair, by case type.
A procedural companion rather than a dimensional reference. What to confirm before the impression or scan, for each kind of case.
Every case, before recording
Look along the intended path of insertion for undercuts. Check clearance with an index or bite registration material, in intercuspation and in excursion. Run an explorer around the finish line to confirm it is continuous and smooth.
Confirm the margin sits on sound tooth structure throughout. Inspect the adjacent teeth for damage. Confirm any additional retention features you intended are actually cut.
Six checks, no equipment beyond what is already on the tray. Practices with the lowest remake rates are almost always doing something like this consistently.
Single crowns
Verify the clearance suits the material you have chosen rather than the one you planned before preparing. If the preparation came out shorter or tighter than intended, reassess the material rather than proceeding by momentum.
Where the clinical crown is short, add grooves or boxes now — they cannot be introduced later without re-preparing and re-recording.
Record the preparation shade for anything translucent. See preparation guidelines for reduction figures by material.
Partial coverage: inlays, onlays, three-quarter crowns
Decide and cut which cusps are being covered, and reduce them properly. A cusp partially covered is the commonest cause of fracture in partial coverage work.
Round the internal line angles. Keep margins on sound structure and clear of occlusal contact where the anatomy allows, and extend to enamel where the restoration will be bonded.
Confirm the field can be isolated if you intend to bond. If it cannot, the design or the material needs reconsidering.
Veneers
Assess how much sound enamel remains facially before committing. Bonding to enamel is considerably more reliable than to dentine, and a preparation that exposes substantial dentine at the margins undermines the restoration.
Use depth cuts against a silicone index from a diagnostic wax-up. Preparing freehand and judging by eye is where most anterior compromises originate.
Decide the incisal design deliberately — window, feathered or overlap — and state it.
Bridge abutments
Assess the common path of insertion across all abutments while preparing, sighting along the arch from the intended direction rather than examining each tooth individually.
Check available occlusogingival height at the embrasures, since that governs connector strength more than anything else. Confirm each abutment is sound enough to carry its share.
Mark abutments and pontics on the design chart and select the pontic form.
Partial denture abutments
Rest seats cut into enamel or restorations so the rest sits within the tooth's contour. Guide planes on the proximal surfaces to establish a path of insertion. Adequate undercut for the clasp terminal, in the right place.
None of this can be added afterwards. Where crowns are planned on abutment teeth, they must be made with the partial denture design in hand.
Send the existing prosthesis with the case wherever possible.
If something is not ideal
Most preparation compromises are workable if the laboratory knows about them. A short preparation, clearance deliberately accepted as tight, a margin clear on three surfaces and uncertain on the fourth — each changes design decisions.
Note them under Special Instructions rather than leaving them to be inferred from a die. A case arriving with a clear note is handled correctly first time; the same case sent silently stops partway through fabrication.
There is no penalty for saying a case is not textbook. There is a real cost to us discovering it.
Implant restorative appointments
Photograph the healing abutment before removing it. Capture the emergence promptly, before the sulcus collapses. Seat the scan body or coping fully and confirm it cannot rock — radiograph if seating is at all uncertain.
Confirm you have the system, product line, platform and connection before the patient leaves. That single check prevents most implant case delays.
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Send a case
Digital scans and conventional impressions are both accepted. Cases move by UPS and Purolator, and Fairmont works with practices throughout British Columbia and across Canada.