Teeth By Design

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Teeth By Design Full Arch, Implants, Cosmetic Dental Lab
Crafting custom restorations with precision & care 🦷
Serving practices locally & nationwide

09/24/2026

Ever wonder how a block of material turns into a crown? 🦷

It starts with a zirconia puck. The milling machine precisely carves the crown out of the zirconia based on its digital design.

When Michael removes it from the mill, the zirconia is still in its softer “green state.” He carefully separates the crown from the puck, removes the small attachment points left behind from milling, then uses a finer bit to smooth and refine the surface.

Next, it heads into the sintering oven for an approximately 9-hour cycle at extreme temperatures. During this process, the zirconia shrinks, hardens, and reaches its final strength.

Digital technology may do the carving, but there’s still plenty of hands-on craftsmanship that goes into every crown we make at Teeth By Design.

Some things are easier to understand when you can actually see them🦷On Friday, we showed Michael a video of a model that...
09/21/2026

Some things are easier to understand when you can actually see them🦷

On Friday, we showed Michael a video of a model that helps explain what’s happening during the implant and full-arch restoration process.

Apparently, that was all the inspiration he needed. By Monday, he had 3D printed his own at home over the weekend. Now we have a hands-on way to show how everything comes together, from the implant to the final restoration.

This is Teeth By Design: curious, creative, and always looking for better ways to understand and share the work we do✨

Janine is putting the finishing touches on this final arch, refining every detail to create a result that looks natural,...
09/20/2026

Janine is putting the finishing touches on this final arch, refining every detail to create a result that looks natural, feels intentional, and is made specifically for the patient.

Stay tuned for a behind-the-scenes video where Janine walks us through the process and explains what goes into perfecting a final arch 🦷✨

09/09/2026

A look behind the scenes at Micheal’s digital design process.

The green model you see on screen is the restoration Micheal designed ahead of time. Once the implants are placed, a scan of the patient’s actual mouth is layered with that original design.

This allows him to see exactly where the implants were placed, make the necessary adjustments, and refine the fit based on the patient’s individual bone and tissue.

The restoration starts with a plan, but the final design is built around the patient.

09/02/2026

What are you seeing here?đź‘€

During the wet-milling process, milling fluid helps keep the material cool while carrying away the fine particles created as the restoration is shaped. Those particles mix with the fluid, creating the white slurry you see here.

A closer look at one of the many steps that goes into creating a precisely crafted restoration at Teeth By Design🦷

08/28/2026

From a solid block to a precisely milled restoration. 🦷

This is CAD/CAM dental manufacturing in action.

Once a restoration has been digitally designed, the design is sent to our wet milling system, where precision burs remove material from a solid dental block to reproduce the anatomy created in the digital file.

Throughout the milling process, liquid is continuously directed onto the cutting area to help control heat, cool the tooling and material, and support a clean, precise result. The machine works across multiple axes and automatically utilizes different milling tools as it moves from initial material removal into finer anatomical detail.

When the milling cycle is complete, the restorations remain connected to the block by small sprues, which allow them to stay securely positioned throughout machining. From here, they can be separated and move into the next stages of the laboratory workflow, including finishing, characterization and polishing depending on the material and restoration.

It’s a highly controlled process that allows our dental laboratory technicians to take a restoration from digital design → solid material → patient-specific restoration with accuracy at every stage.

08/27/2026

Natural esthetics are built one detail at a time.

During the characterization and finishing stage, our dental technicians use specialized stains and ceramic materials to refine the appearance of each restoration. Rather than relying on a single uniform shade, subtle variations in value, chroma, translucency, and surface characterization are introduced to better replicate the complexity of natural dentition.

Every material on the palette serves a purpose—from creating warmth and depth to defining anatomy and adding the subtle color variations that keep a restoration from looking flat or artificial.

This stage requires an understanding of both dental ceramics and color theory, along with the ability to translate a clinical shade and patient-specific information into a finished restoration.

It’s highly technical work performed on a very small scale—and an important part of producing consistent, natural-looking results for our dental partners and their patients.

08/26/2026

There’s a lot that happens between “print” and “patient-ready.” 🦷

Digital dentistry gives us incredible precision, but the technology is only part of the process. Once a dental restoration comes off the 3D printer, it still requires careful post-processing, cleaning, support removal, and finishing to prepare it for the next stage.

It’s a combination of advanced dental technology and hands-on craftsmanship that turns a digital design into something made for the patient.

At Teeth By Design, every step matters… from the digital file to the final restoration.

A restoration can move through several rounds of adjusting, refining, cleaning, and evaluating before the work is comple...
08/14/2026

A restoration can move through several rounds of adjusting, refining, cleaning, and evaluating before the work is complete.

A steam cleaner helps remove polishing compounds, dust, oils, and other residue from the surface—giving the technician a clean restoration to evaluate before continuing the work.

Make an adjustment. Clean it. Take another look. Keep going.

Just one of the many steps happening behind the scenes at Teeth By Design.

There’s something special about a classic✨Gold crowns have been used in dentistry for generations, and while we don’t se...
08/11/2026

There’s something special about a classic✨

Gold crowns have been used in dentistry for generations, and while we don’t see nearly as many of them come through the lab today, there’s something pretty satisfying about getting one on the bench.

Stevie put the finishing touches on this one with a final polish before it headed out the door. A little old-school dentistry making an appearance at Teeth By Design🦷

Address

5565 Bendt Drive Suite 404
Rapid City, SD
57702

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+6057871492

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