Open Bench Ep.009 - Polishing Zirconia & Glaze: Wheels, Tools & RPMs That Work

Even glazed restorations need to be polished. In this episode of Open Bench, Mike Archibald walks through his polishing workflow on ceramic, zirconia, and disilicate: which wheels and tools he reaches for, what RPMs to stay under, and why honing down glaze gets rid of the porosities that cause surface breakdown in the mouth. We also cover community posts (direct composite, bar-supported zirconia, and a zirconia bridge failure) and answer your registration questions on translucency, function-first aesthetics, pricing small bars, digital outsourcing, and more. In this episode: Polishing wheels and tools for ceramic, zirconia, and glaze Why glaze should always be polished afterward Keeping RPMs at or below 12,000 on rubber and flexible wheels Polishing Nano Zirconia straight out of the sintering furnace with Speed Polish Yellowstone shapes for contacts, sprue removal, and cutbacks Translucency: why you never use clear, and why violet is the safe call Function first: how to get full-arch aesthetics right Pricing a bar: time plus alloy Outsourcing digital design Why "definitive" 3D-printed resin isn't permanent Adapting to change in dentistry Timestamps 00:00 Welcome 01:19 Community posts 10:11 Bench Brief: polishing wheels and tools 24:17 Open Bench Q&A 25:28 Sleep 26:42 Pricing a small implant bar 28:08 Translucency 32:50 Time management 35:18 Aesthetic full arches 39:04 Gen X and Millennials in the lab 41:19 Staining all-on-4 restorations 44:40 Digital outsourcing 48:13 Biggest misconception about DLP/LCD 3D printing 50:44 Navigating change 56:19 Next week's guest Want your question answered on a future episode? Submit it when you register for the next Open Bench. https://hvst.link/Open-Bench