I had an interesting observation today when milling out some units for an experiment Im doing on Adhesive Gap - you know the paramters for onlays that so many people understand so clearly (Insert sarcasm here).   In milling out some restorations out of the LAVA Ultimate material for this test, I noticed something interesting - how thin the material will mill.

Let me explain - when you mill out a CEREC restoration, there are some left over fins on the block itself. sometimes the fins stay, sometimes they break- we really dont give it another thought in that the amount of remaining porcelain is somewhat errratic.  

So I milled the first restoration and lo and behold there were some fins left over on the block. It was interesting to see how thin the remaining material was as you can see from the photo below:

Yes- as a reference I put a dime behind the restoration to give you an idea of size.  The material mills very thin:

What wasnt interesting that only one restoration had the left over fins.  What was interesting was that all 5 blocks that I milled had the exact same pattern. Even if you are milling the same file, other materials will break off and sometimes you have a fin left over, sometimes you dont. In this case all 5 blocks had the same effect.

If the long term luster and shine holds up on this LAVA Ultimate material, I think we have a real winner here. Initial impressions are very promising.

Whats the conclusion here?