Upper and Lower Veneers: 20-Unit Case Study 

This upper and lower veneers case study explores how ASD Dental Lab fabricated 20 pressed lithium disilicate restorations across both dental arches. The case involved coordinated CAD design, anterior spacing correction, individual stump shade assessment, ceramic characterization, and quality verification to meet the clinician’s restorative requirements.

Case snapshot

Patient situation

Chief concern

The patient presented with multiple anterior diastemas — visible spacing between the upper anterior teeth, most noticeable between the central incisors and between the laterals and canines. The lower arch also showed minor spacing around the central and lateral incisors. In addition, several anterior units carried old composite buildups that had darkened at the margins over time and no longer matched the natural tooth structure around them. A handful of upper and lower units showed wear facets on the incisal edges, with minor chipping visible under magnification.

The visible frame extended across both arches — during speech and broad laughter, the lower incisors were fully visible, so correcting the upper arch alone would have left a visible value and texture step between the two rows.

History and context

Approximately 18 months before the veneer case was briefed, the patient had consulted on orthodontic alignment to close the diastemas. The patient declined that route after being advised that the anterior spacing correction would require brackets and a lengthy provisional phase. The prescribing clinician later advised that alignment alone would not address the wear facets, the darkened composite margins, or the overall shade variation — the case required restorative coverage rather than repositioning.

The patient’s work involved continuous face-to-face speaking on most working days, which ruled out a long provisional phase with repeated adjustment visits. The clinician’s plan had to fit within a single coordinated order — one design, one shade run, both arches fabricated together rather than matched after the upper arch was seated.

Occlusion and function

• Overbite and overjet: within normal range
• Anterior guidance: canine-guided on both sides; no group function
• Wear pattern: documented wear facets on the incisal edges of the upper and lower central incisors and the upper laterals, pointing to possible low-level parafunctional loading (no confirmed bruxism diagnosis, but the clinician flagged the wear as a risk factor for thin ceramic)
• Bite stability: stable maximum intercuspation; no anterior interference in protrusion or lateral excursion
• Prepared units: all margins kept on enamel; no margin extended to the level of an existing restoration

Restorative history

• Two small Class III composite restorations on the distal of upper unit #7 and the mesial of upper unit #10, both more than three years old
• No prior crowns, bridges, or other fixed restorations in the anterior segment
• No history of endodontic involvement on any anterior unit

Periodontal status

• Healthy periodontal tissues; probing depths ≤3 mm throughout
• No recession on the upper anterior units
• One exception: the gingival margin of the lower left canine (#22) was approximately 0.5 mm apical relative to the contralateral canine (#27), creating a minor asymmetry in the lower smile line that would be visible in the finished case unless the lab compensated by adjusting the emergence profile or extending the restoration slightly

Shade baseline

The natural tooth structure presented slight value variation across the arches:

• Upper arch: predominantly A2 body shade, with the incisal third reading slightly lighter
• Lower arch: predominantly A3 body shade — one value step deeper than the upper
• Mixed substrate beneath prepared units: the units carrying old composite showed a darker underlying tone beneath the preparation, so a single stump-shade record for the whole arch would have finished those units at a deeper value than the untouched units

The prescribing clinician provided per-unit stump-shade photographs for every prepared tooth, each photographed in natural light with a shade tab in the same frame. This record allowed the lab to adjust opacity and layering on a per-unit basis so the finished arch would read as one consistent value rather than finishing at two or three.

What the clinician asked for on this case

The order arrived as a single prescription covering both arches — 20 units, one delivery date, one design. What it carried, and what each item decided on the lab side:

Why the per-unit shade record mattered on this case

Two things in this mouth would have broken a single-arch shade record. First, the arch was not one value to begin with — the lower sat a step deeper than the upper, and the units carrying old composite buildups read darker beneath the preparation than the untouched teeth beside them. A single tab applied across the arch finishes the arch at two or three different values: the untouched teeth come out where they were planned, and the composite units come out deep, which in the lower arch means deep against a deeper target.

The neck of a tooth reads deeper and more saturated than the body, the body transitions, and the incisal edge carries translucency and opalescence. One number cannot hold all three. With a record per unit, the lab adjusts opacity and layering per unit so the finished lower arch reads as one value against its own A3 target, and the upper reads as one value against its A2 target — two arches, each internally consistent, with the intended step between them.

The same record set was also what made it possible to handle the #7 and #10 units, where old composite was still under the margin line: those two were layered differently from their neighbours on the basis of their photographs, not assumed to match.

Upper and Lower Veneer Design and Fabrication

The clinician never sees this part. It is the part that decides what comes back on an upper and lower veneers case.

Stage 1 — Record review, before any design started

The intake coordinator pulled this case against the required-items list. On a 20-unit upper and lower veneers case spanning both arches, three things were checked specifically:

• Were both opposing arches present? Yes — and on this case type they are not optional, because clearance is only meaningful against the arch that opposes it.
• Was the provisional scan there, and had it been accepted? Yes. It had been scanned before removal, and it carried the clinician’s signature on the shape.
• Were the stump-shade records per unit or per arch? Per unit — twenty photographs. This was checked rather than assumed, because a per-arch record on a mixed-substrate arch is the difference between one value and three.

Nothing was missing. The case moved to design.

Stage 2 — Design

Front-aesthetic work goes to the anterior-aesthetic group in the CAD design team, not to a general bench assignment. An upper and lower veneers case like this one needed that group specifically: 20 units across two arches is not a scale job, it is a coordination job — every lower unit had to agree with every upper unit in value, texture and edge position, and the person making those calls had to be the same person on both arches.

The design file was colour PLY, not STL. STL carries geometry only. Front-aesthetic planning needs colour, surface texture and gingival reference, so a colour PLY came in with the case.

The design was anchored to the accepted provisional scan. Where the clinician has already signed off a shape, the lab follows it. The instruction set on this case also carried the split the clinician writes into the order — exact copy for what was already validated, proportion only for what needed scaling to the new closure, contour improvement for what was explicitly open for development. On this case the diastema closure fell into the second group, and the lower incisal contour into the third.

The lower design was drawn against the upper, not after it. Because the patient speaks face-to-face and the lower incisors sit inside the visible frame, the lower edge position was set by reference to the upper edge position — the same distance from the upper incisal edge to the lower incisal edge in the provisional, carried through unchanged. This is the decision that keeps a two-arch case from reading as two separate rows.

Thickness was checked before pressing, not after. Each design was checked against the planned ceramic thickness. Where a unit could not carry the requested translucency at the clearance available, the design went back to the clinician as a flag before the shade was locked — not after the case was in production. On this case the wear facets on the centrals and upper laterals made that check meaningful rather than procedural: those units carry the guidance load, and thin ceramic in a loaded position is where chipping starts.

The #22 was drawn to the contralateral reference. The lower left canine was mirrored against #27 so the gingival line and emergence profile read symmetric from the front. The lab does not decide gingival position clinically — but once the clinician has flagged the asymmetry and specified the compensation, building it into the unit is the lab’s job, not the chair’s.

Stage 3 — Production

• Pressed lithium disilicate, both arches in one press cycle where the kiln schedule allowed it, so the two rows came from the same material read rather than two separate runs.
• Characterisation layering, not surface tint. The incisal third needed depth — translucency, opalescence and a soft edge transition — and a tint sits on the surface and reads flat. Neck-to-body-to-incisal was built as a layered progression per unit, using that unit’s own stump record.
• Contact tightness set on the model. The prescription marked each contact light, normal or tight; the lab set them on the printed model to spec. Chairside is not where contacts get established.
• A printed model shipped with the case, so the clinician could verify seating before the units went into the mouth, plus a printed temporary for the interim period.

Stage 4 — Pre-dispatch check, on all 20 units

Nothing ships because the calendar says it is due. It ships when the list has been run and the result recorded:

1. Marginal fit
2. Internal surface quality
3. Seating and passive fit
4. Proximal contact tightness against the prescription mark
5. Centric, protrusive and lateral contacts
6. Form, contour, finish and polish
7. Freedom from cracks, porosity and chipping — for pressed glass-ceramic this ran as a separate lighting check
8. Match against the prescription and the design, unit by unit

On a 20-unit case this list is run twenty times, not once. A written note went out on which units sat in the lateral contact path, so the clinician’s occlusal check knew where to look.

20 Porcelain Veneers: Final Laboratory Verification

The case ships as a single coordinated order — both arches, one design, one shade run, one pre-dispatch result. What came out of the building:

• All 20 units, each labelled to its tooth number (12 upper, 8 lower);
• A printed model of the prepared arch, so seating could be verified before any unit went into the mouth;
• A printed temporary built to the accepted design, for the same appointment;
• The pre-dispatch check record for each of the 20 units;
• A written note flagging the units sitting in the lateral contact path — in this case the upper and lower canines, which carry the guidance on both sides;
• The design file and the per-unit shade records, kept on file against the case number.

After the try-in — the patient’s comments and the clinician’s checks

The provisional try-in took place before final ceramic production: the temporary went in, the patient spoke in front of a mirror, and the clinician checked the planned shape, shade and function. The completed veneers were then assessed separately for seating, margins and contacts after fabrication. The observations below distinguish the provisional assessment from final restoration verification.

What the patient said

• “I kept touching the gap between my front teeth because it was the first thing I saw when I smiled. It’s not the first thing any more.” The upper midline diastema and the two lateral gaps on either side were the reason the patient came in, and closing them is what she checked first.
• “The lower ones finally look like they belong to me.” She had been told for years that the lower teeth could be left alone. Seeing both rows change together in the mirror was the moment the case made sense to her.
• “My teeth feel bigger.” Not longer — bigger. The temporary added volume to the incisal edges and filled the contact points, and lip support changed with it. This was expected and had been shown to her on the approved provisional, but hearing her say it out loud at the try-in mattered, because it is the thing patients most often want changed afterwards.
• “I said ‘eee’ and ‘aw’ out loud about ten times and nothing felt blocked.” Phonetics was checked on the temporary, at the same appointment, because the design had been anchored to a provisional that had already been spoken through.
• “The colour is different in here than it is at home.” At the provisional try-in, the patient noticed a difference under operatory lighting. The shade was therefore rechecked in daylight and confirmed before final ceramic production.

What the clinician checked

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Why the try-in carries more weight than the delivery appointment

Once a unit is cemented, the design is locked in. Everything that could still be changed — value, incisal length, incisal edge position, contact tightness, emergence profile, how the case sits in speech — gets judged on the temporary, while it is still cheap to change. That is why this lab treats the temporary as a working reference rather than a courtesy item, and why a design anchored to an approved provisional scan is worth more than one anchored to a photograph.

Why clinicians send work like this

Three structural points, because structure is what makes upper and lower veneers cases like the one above possible.

• In-house full workflow. Every major step runs inside the lab — case intake, CAD design, 3D model printing, CAM milling, ceramic pressing and layering, glazing, polishing, and final inspection. No step is outsourced to a third-party production house. On a case where upper and lower have to come from one design and one shade run, that is the difference between one reference and two guesses.
• About 460 staff, split across two facilities in Shenzhen and Huizhou, including a front-aesthetic group that handles anterior work as a named responsibility rather than an assignment off the general bench.
• Open to factory visits — clinicians and partner laboratories can visit the Shenzhen and Huizhou facilities in person or by video and see the production lines directly.

Upper and Lower Veneers: Frequently Asked Questions

Compliance and source notes

• The case described on this page is presented as a worked example built from cases of this type the lab processes, with identifying details removed. It is not a releasable patient record. No clinician or patient name appears, and no case-specific display is shown.
• All process claims in the body of the page are based on the lab’s internal intake protocol and working instructions and on public references, including the Klein et al. systematic review and meta-analysis of porcelain laminate veneer survival (PMC full text) and the Influence of Enamel Preservation on Failure Rates of Porcelain Laminate Veneers study.