Development of Rubber-bonded Diamond Polishing Tool for Dental Ceramics

Recently, as the demand for aesthetic satisfaction in crown restoration, various dental materials are developed, which are applied to inlay or crown. Among them, dental porcelain is efficient in terms of aesthetic satisfaction, corrosion control, and withstanding wearing, and also especially efficient at biocompatibility. Finishing polish at making process of crown restorations is a very significant process in order to meet physiological and hygienical requirement, as well as for aesthetic satisfaction. Hard brittle materials such as ceramics are generally known that its surface integrity may affect its strength. There are similar reports referring to the dental ceramics. Dental porcelain which is a part of dental ceramics is a hard brittle material. Since polishing technology is important for enhancing its accuracy of flatness, also because of its increasing strength, development of its technology is urgently required. By the way, currently, poly-crystalline diamond which is efficient at high-precision machining of difficult machining materials such as high hardness ceramics is mainly used as loose abrasive grain. Therefore, in this study, as a new approach to development of wheels for dental technique, poly-crystalline diamond which has not been used as bonded abrasive is used. And this wheel was weighed against mono-crystalline diamond which is conventionally used as bonded abrasive. Regarding wheels, for the purpose of clinical appliance, rubber bonded diamond wheels is developed, and polish dental porcelain. The purpose of this study is to obtain the glossy surface equal to glazed surface of dental porcelain which is conventionally adapted to clinical appliances.