Why remakes cost more than the remake
A remade crown means a second appointment, a longer time in a temporary, more chair time and a patient who may lose some confidence in the result. The lab spends fabrication time twice as well. The good news is that remakes rarely come out of nowhere. In day-to-day lab work, the same handful of causes come up again and again, and almost all of them are visible somewhere along the way: in the scan, in the design preview or at try-in.
This guide walks through those causes and gives a checklist for each stage of the case.
The common causes
| Cause | What it looks like at seating | Where it starts |
|---|---|---|
| Margin not captured | Open or short margin, overhang, crown that "almost" seats | Tissue, blood or saliva over the finish line during scanning |
| Insufficient reduction | Crown too thin to be durable, high occlusion, or the lab had to flatten anatomy | Preparation, especially occlusal and functional cusp reduction |
| Distorted or incomplete scan | Rocking, poor internal fit, wrong contours | Stitching errors, missing areas, moisture, patient movement |
| Bite errors | Crown high on one side, open contacts with opposing teeth | Bite scan taken with the patient not fully closed, or one side only |
| Shade miscommunication | Crown too bright, too gray or wrong value in the mouth | Shade taken in poor light, after the tooth dried out, or not photographed |
| Contacts | Open contact (food trap) or contact too tight to seat | Adjacent teeth not fully scanned, or teeth moved before seating |
| Delayed seating | Crown that fit the scan but no longer fits the mouth | Lost or broken temporary, long gap between scan and seat |
| Design not reviewed | Any of the above, found only at try-in | Design approved without actually checking it |
Margins
An intraoral scanner can only record what it can see. If the gingiva covers the finish line, or blood or saliva sits on it, the scanner records the wrong surface and the lab cannot design a correct margin. Retraction, hemostasis and drying matter just as much with a scanner as with impression material. A margin the technician has to guess at is a common reason a crown does not seat cleanly.
Reduction
Every crown material has a minimum thickness the manufacturer recommends. When there is not enough occlusal or axial clearance, the lab has three bad choices: make the crown thinner than recommended, build it out of occlusion, or ask you to adjust the opposing tooth. Reduction guides, or checking clearance in the scanner software before the patient leaves, catch this early.
Scans and bite
Incomplete scans often miss the distal of the last tooth, the contact areas on neighboring teeth or the cusps of the opposing arch. Bite problems usually come from a bite scan taken while the patient was not fully in their normal closed position, or from scanning only one side of a full-arch bite. Look at the bite alignment in your software before sending.
Shade
Take the shade early in the appointment, before the teeth dry out and lighten, and under consistent, color-corrected light. A photo with the shade tab held next to the tooth, at the same plane, tells the lab far more than a written shade alone. For translucent materials, the color of the prepared tooth (stump shade) also affects the final result, especially over a dark or discolored preparation.
Contacts and delayed seating
Teeth can drift when a temporary is lost or loose, even over a fairly short period. If the patient has been without a temporary, or the crown is being seated much later than planned, contacts and occlusion may no longer match the scan. In that case it is often better to rescan than to force a crown that was designed for a different situation.
Checklist 1: before you send the case
- Finish line visible and continuous all the way around in the scan, with no tissue, blood or saliva over it.
- Occlusal and axial clearance checked against the material you are prescribing.
- No undercuts or sharp line angles that the design cannot follow.
- Preparation arch complete, including both adjacent teeth and their contact areas.
- Opposing arch complete over the area of the restoration.
- Bite scan taken in the patient's normal closed position, ideally on both sides.
- Shade, stump shade if relevant, and photos with the shade tab attached.
- Tooth number, restoration type and material written clearly on the prescription.
- Any special requests stated explicitly: contact tightness, occlusal scheme, anatomy to copy.
Scanner clouds make it easy to send a case in seconds. It is worth spending one more minute reviewing the scan on screen before you press send.
Checklist 2: at design approval
If your lab sends a CAD design for approval, this is your best chance to stop a remake before anything is fabricated. Treat it as a real check, not a formality.
- Margin line: does it follow the actual finish line you prepared, all the way around?
- Contacts: are both proximal contacts present and in the right position?
- Occlusion: is the crown in even contact with the opposing teeth, without heavy or premature contacts?
- Thickness: are there areas the design software marks as too thin for the material?
- Contour: are the emergence profile and buccal/lingual contours cleansable and natural?
- Notes from the lab: did the technician flag anything, such as an unclear margin or limited clearance? If so, decide now whether to adjust the tooth and rescan.
If something looks wrong, ask for a specific change rather than approving and hoping it will be fine. A revision at the design stage costs hours; a remake costs another appointment. For clinics that mill or print in-house, design approval is even more important; see our guide on design-only orders.
Checklist 3: at try-in
- Check the crown on the model or under magnification before it goes in the mouth.
- Seat it without force. If it stops short, check contacts first with floss; a tight contact is a common reason a crown does not drop into place.
- Check margins with an explorer all the way around.
- Check occlusion with articulating paper in closed position and in excursions.
- Check shade in natural light, with the tooth hydrated.
- Make minor adjustments chairside where appropriate, and note what you adjusted.
Whether an adjustment is acceptable or a remake is needed is a clinical judgment. The goal of the checklist is to identify the actual cause, which is what the lab needs to fix it.
How to ask for a remake clearly
A good remake request lets the lab fix the real problem the first time. A vague one often leads to a second remake. Include:
- What is wrong: "open distal contact," "high on the mesiobuccal cusp," "margin short on the lingual," "value too high." Avoid "doesn't fit."
- How you checked: floss, explorer, articulating paper, shade tab comparison.
- Photos: the crown seated or partially seated, the margin area, shade comparison in natural light.
- Whether anything changed: new preparation, adjusted opposing tooth, lost temporary. If yes, send a new scan.
- What you want this time: same design with a correction, a different material, or a different shade.
Keep the original crown until the case is resolved. The lab may ask about it when working out the cause.
How this works on HERi2go
On HERi2go, cases include a design approval step: the lab uploads the CAD design, and you approve it on the web or in the HERi2go Clinic mobile app before fabrication starts (unless the design is auto-approved because of a lab setting or a rush order). You can use the order chat, with built-in translation, to ask the lab for changes, or reject the design with a note so the lab revises it. If a problem shows up after delivery, you can submit a claim until the order is confirmed, which happens automatically a few days after delivery, or request a remake from a completed order. Use the chat to share photos and details with the lab. How claims and remakes are resolved is set out in the Terms of Service.
Summary
- Most remakes trace back to margins, reduction, scan or bite quality, shade, contacts or delayed seating.
- Review the scan on screen before sending: margins, adjacent teeth, opposing arch, bite.
- Send shade photos with the tab, not just a shade code.
- Treat design approval as a real inspection, and ask for specific changes.
- At try-in, check contacts, margins, occlusion and shade in that order.
- Rescan if teeth may have moved since the original scan.
- Make remake requests specific, with photos and a note on what changed.