Dental Ceramist — Dental Technician · 26 years in the trade
Dental Ceramist — Dental Technician
Esthetic layering, full-arch implant restoration and hyper-realistic characterization. Every unit is treated as a one-off piece.
See the workApproach
A crown that works is a crown nobody notices. Everything happens in the way light travels through the ceramic: the cervical-to-incisal gradient, the translucency of the incisal edge, the surface texture that catches or scatters it.
Shade analysis, layer-by-layer build-up, characterization and texture matched to the patient — the same standard on a single unit as on a full implant-supported arch.
Training
Selected work
Ceramics, composite, implantology and telescopic prosthetics — a selection of representative cases, made at the bench.
Clinical case · Before / After
Worn dentition, collapsed incisal edges and an asymmetric incisal plane. The smile line was rebuilt in full — length, incisal curve and volume returned to the mouth — with a shade and surface texture that still read as a natural dentition.
Clinical case · Before / After
A discoloured provisional on the central incisor, shorter and yellower than its neighbour. The layered ceramic on zirconia that replaces it takes back the shade, the length and the relief of the adjacent natural teeth — the single unit that has to disappear, the most demanding exercise in layering.
Zirconia · Implant
Screw-retained full-arch bridge on a metal framework: full-zirconia crowns with layered composite gingiva. Faithful mimicry of a mature dentition — occlusal wear, intrinsic staining and gingival recession.
Zirconia · Posterior
Screw-retained implant bridge in the posterior sector: sculpted occlusal morphology, stained grooves and reproduced wear. Access channels are worked into the relief rather than drilled straight through it.
Milled bar · Implant
High-precision milled bar on multi-unit abutments — correcting divergent implant axes, with a calculated taper on every surface: the prosthesis seats fully and is retained by friction alone.
Telescopic prosthesis
Paired view of the bar seated on the model and the milled intaglio surface of the prosthesis — the precision fit provides friction retention with no mechanical attachment.
Set-up · Gingival work
Integration of the telescopic structure, tooth set-up and gingival work — balancing removable-fixed retention with a natural appearance.
Ackermann bar · Implant
Screw-retained bar on four implants with a complete composite prosthesis: the intaglio surface houses the retention clips, and the layered gingiva compensates for bone loss. A stabilised removable solution, lighter than a full-zirconia arch.
Ceramics · Anterior
Cervical-to-incisal gradient, incisal edge translucency and surface texture — the interplay of light that defines fine layering. Opalescent masses laid into the incisal third return blue in reflected light and amber in transmitted light, exactly as natural enamel does.
Ceramo-metallic · Anterior
Layering on a metal framework with pronounced texture work: growth striations, marked lobes and surface states that break the light. A smooth surface returns a uniform reflection and gives the restoration away; texture is what makes it disappear.
Occlusal morphology
Sculpted occlusal morphology, simulated restorations and controlled ageing, with an implant-supported unit integrated into the arch.
Implant · Integration
The same set-up seen from the side: the implant-supported crown sits among natural teeth with their roots exposed. Form, shade and surface texture tuned to the arch — the prosthetic unit no longer stands apart from its neighbours.
Waxing · Fundamentals
Individual teeth waxed with their roots — the technician's foundational discipline: complete command of form.
Beyond the laboratory
Medusa mask in yellow gold, two rubies set into the eyes. Wax modelling, lost-wax casting, stone setting: the same gestures that produce a metal framework or a milled bar. Ceramic is laid onto a form — the form still has to be sculpted.
Scope of practice
Three families of work, from the single unit to the complete implant-supported arch. Every piece shown above comes from one of them.
Ceramic or composite, on copings you supply. Shade analysis, layer-by-layer build-up and surface texture matched to the patient.
Internal staining, craze lines, discolorations, occlusal wear — custom esthetic integration, including mature dentitions.
Screw-retained, Ackermann bar, milled bar and telescopic prosthesis, hybrid or full arch: I cover the whole range of implant-supported solutions, from single units to full-arch cases.
The project
I am preparing to settle in New Brunswick, where my family lives, to work as an independent ceramist for Canadian dental laboratories. The principle: they keep the design, the milling and their client relationship; I take on the esthetic portion — the work that determines how the restoration integrates in the mouth. New Brunswick will be the starting point, with Quebec and Nova Scotia as the project's natural extension.
This site presents my work. It does not yet announce a service: immigration procedures are under way and the bench is still to be set up. Laboratories interested in the project are welcome to write now — a conversation beforehand is worth more than a cold call on the day I arrive.
Contact
You run a laboratory and some cases have no taker — a milled bar, a telescopic prosthesis, a demanding anterior nobody wants to layer anymore? Describe that case: it is the best way to start the conversation.
sylvain@sylvainherbin.ca