Last updated: September 2026
If your dentist has told you a tooth needs a crown, you may have heard that it can be done in one visit. That sounds appealing, but you probably want to know whether a crown made in an hour is the same quality as one made in a dental laboratory over two weeks. The answer is nuanced, and worth understanding before you decide.
The conventional way to make a crown has been the standard for decades:
The temporary crown is functional but not a long-term solution. It can come loose, it can break, and it does not seal the tooth as well as the final crown. The two-week gap between visits is time you spend with a compromised tooth.
Same-day crowns compress the entire workflow into a single appointment:
No putty impression. No temporary crown. No second visit. No two-week wait.
One appointment instead of two. For patients working in the eastern suburbs or commuting from Croydon, Ringwood or Bayswater to the CBD, eliminating a second visit is a practical benefit. Taking time off work twice for the same tooth is something most people would rather avoid.
Temporary crowns are a weak point in the traditional process. They can dislodge while eating, they can crack, and they allow bacteria and saliva to seep around the margins of the prepared tooth. Eliminating the temporary eliminates that risk.
The intraoral scan captures the preparation with high accuracy. There is no distortion from impression material pulling away from the tooth, no bubbles in the putty, no dimensional change as the material sets. The digital file goes directly from the scanner to the design software to the milling unit without a physical model in between.
You leave the practice with your final crown fitted and cemented. There is no period of vulnerability with a temporary, and no anxiety about whether the lab-made crown will fit at the second visit.
For highly visible front teeth where the crown needs to blend seamlessly with the natural teeth in colour, translucency and surface texture, a skilled laboratory technician can layer porcelain by hand to achieve effects that a milled block cannot replicate in a single appointment. This is the domain where art meets dentistry, and it is where lab crowns have an edge.
A three-unit bridge or a case involving several adjacent crowns may benefit from laboratory fabrication, where the technician can work on the units together, adjusting contacts and colour across the group.
Some materials, such as gold alloy or certain pressed ceramics, are not available in same-day milling blocks. If a specific material is indicated for your tooth, the lab may be the only route.
Teeth with unusual shapes, very short preparations, or complex margin lines may be better served by a technician who can customise the crown in ways that extend beyond what the milling software handles efficiently.
Same-day crowns are milled from industrially manufactured ceramic blocks, typically lithium disilicate (a glass ceramic known for its strength and aesthetics) or zirconia (an extremely hard ceramic suited to back teeth). These blocks are made under controlled factory conditions, which gives them predictable and consistent physical properties.
Lab-made crowns use a wider range of materials and techniques, from pressed ceramics to hand-layered porcelain to full-contour zirconia. The material itself is not inherently stronger or weaker because of where the crown was made. What matters is that the right material is selected for the right tooth.
Your dentist chooses the material based on where the crown sits in the mouth (front teeth need aesthetics, back teeth need strength), the forces it will absorb (grinders need tougher materials), and the amount of tooth remaining after preparation.
Our CAD/CAM workflow is not a branded system like CEREC. We use our own combination of intraoral scanner, design software and milling unit. The practice also has a Phrozen 3D printer for surgical guides and models, and a cone beam CT scanner for imaging. This means that from the scan to the design to the fabrication, the entire workflow stays within the building at 59 Wicklow Ave.
For patients in Croydon and the surrounding suburbs of Heathmont, Kilsyth and Chirnside Park, this means the crown is made while you are in the chair. There is no courier, no external lab turnaround, and no second trip across town.
In most cases, your dentist will recommend same-day if it suits the tooth. It is not a compromise; it is a different manufacturing method with equivalent outcomes for the majority of crown cases. When a lab crown is more appropriate, your dentist will tell you why and the process will follow the traditional two-visit path.
You do not need to decide this yourself. The choice is clinical, and your dentist makes it based on the tooth, the material needed, and the location in the mouth.
If you have been told you need a crown, or you think you might, the next step is an assessment. Our same-day crowns page has full detail on the process. Our crown cost article explains how pricing works.
Call (03) 9725 8040 or book online. We are at 59 Wicklow Ave, Croydon, with Saturday appointments available.
This article is general information comparing same-day and traditional crown fabrication methods. It is not personal dental advice. Your dentist will recommend the approach that suits your specific tooth and clinical situation.