How to Process Casting Waxes before Printing?

With the rapid adoption of digital dentistry, traditional manual methods for creating casting waxes are gradually being replaced by 3D printing technology. As the core intermediary in the process of fabricating metal restorations with lost-wax casting, the precision and surface quality of casting waxes directly determine the final fit and casting success rate of crowns, bridges, and frameworks. While 3D printing can faithfully present design details and shorten production cycles, careful planning of supports and shrinkage during the slicing stage is essential. This article will systematically explain the key considerations for the entire workflow of casting waxes—from model import to final slicing—using CHITUBOX Dental software, helping users achieve high-precision, low-defect waxes.

New users are recommended to read the Primer tutorial "What to Do Before Model Preparation in CHITUBOX Dental?" to understand how to complete initial settings after launching the software, including printer and material selection, print parameter configuration, and model import.

Casting Waxes

Dental casting waxes are precision "disposable" models used to fabricate various metal restorations, such as metal crowns and bridges, porcelain-fused-to-metal copings, and removable metal frameworks. After investing, they are completely burned out at high temperatures, leaving cavities identical to the waxes for metal casting. Compared to traditional manual methods, 3D printing technology significantly improves the dimensional accuracy, surface quality, and design consistency of waxes, laying a solid foundation for high-quality metal castings.

CHITUBOX Dental can convert digital models designed in CAD software into files recognizable by 3D printers. Proper preprocessing operations effectively prevent print failures and ensure that the restorations meet clinical requirements for marginal fit, proximal contacts, occlusal function, and overall adaptability.

Manual Processing

Due to the diverse shapes of casting waxes, there is no unified processing standard, so CHITUBOX Dental’s Auto Process function does not include this application currently. Users can process waxes step by step: orientation, support generation, and layout.

Orientation

Dental casting waxes use specialized photosensitive resins with low viscosity, low shrinkage, and low ash content (minimal residue after burning). These materials are brittle and rigid after curing, meaning the orientation must ensure balanced peeling forces during printing to avoid cracking of fragile thin walls during separation.

The main applications of casting waxes are crowns/bridges or metal frameworks. The orientation for crowns/bridges is the same as for temporary crowns: adjust the intaglio surface to face upward to avoid adding supports on this surface.

For metal framework waxes, the following requirements apply:

• If the framework has palatal/lingual textures or stippling designs, orient that surface upward to avoid supports damaging the texture. Supports should be added to the intaglio surface, which is relatively smooth and easier to grind and polish later.

• The metal framework should be tilted at an angle to the build platform because:

  (1) Due to the arch structure of the palate, tilting prevents slicing from forming enclosed rings, which could create sealed cavities during printing, increasing peeling forces and likely causing print failures.

  (2) Tilting reduces the model’s projected area, decreasing the number of supports and lowering the risk of damaging the model during support removal.

Support

Thin supports are recommended for casting waxes. Since the final waxes are brittle, thicker supports increase the risk of damage during removal, and larger support contact points can leave pits or bumps on the model, affecting metal casting quality or increasing post-processing work.

Based on these factors, supporting casting waxes follow these principles:

• Use the Light support with appropriately increased density to ensure stable printing and small contact points.

• For metal frameworks, avoid adding supports on palatal/lingual textures. Manually supplement thin areas like clasps and rests with a few 2mm-diameter anti-deformation supports, which can be retained until pre-investment trimming to prevent warping during curing. And it's recommended to remove these supports with scissor, avoiding damage to clasps and rests.

CHITUBOX Dental allows adjustment of support density via the Auto Support Point Spacing and Auto Support Trunk Spacing parameters in the support settings. However, the spacing between support points and trunks should not be too small, as sufficient space is needed for removal with scissors during post-processing.

Layout

Whether for metal crowns or frameworks, casting waxes use the same material, so different models can be printed in the same batch. CHITUBOX Dental’s nested layout function is well-suited for handling models of varying sizes and shapes.

For batch printing, such as in dental labs, use the software’s layout function to quickly adjust model positions. To prevent excessive peeling forces caused by models concentrating at the center of the platform, set model spacing to distribute them evenly across the build area. For single-case printing in dental clinics, models can be directly placed at the centre of the platform.

After completing all steps, click the Slice button in the lower-right corner to enter the preview interface and check the slice data. Then, click Save to store the file locally or on a storage device for transfer to the 3D printer, following the operational workflow. For network-enabled machines, use the Send to Printer function to transfer the file directly to the printer and initiate printing.

We hope this guide helps you better utilize CHITUBOX Dental for processing casting waxes. If you have alternative insights, feel free to share them with us at marketing@dental.chitubox.com.

Explore our content in the "Proficiency" tutorials to learn about processing more application types.