At Prime Dental Laboratory in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, the pursuit of precision and innovation has always been at the heart of the business.
Founded by Tim Jackson and Jamie Sawdon, the lab has grown to become a leading name in removable prosthetics and implant-supported dentures, with a particular focus on digital workflows.
As demand increases and patient expectations evolve, Tim and Jamie have continued to invest heavily in technology that can deliver better outcomes, faster turnarounds and seamless results.
That ambition culminated in the purchase of a Stratasys J5 DentaJet 3D printer. With the introduction of Stratasys’ revolutionary TrueDent resin, Prime Dental Lab is now producing full-colour, high-strength dentures with fewer adjustments, faster finishing times and improved comfort for patients across the UK.
Project Brief:
As demand for digital denture solutions increased, Prime Dental Laboratory recognised the need to modernise its production processes. With a growing number of dentists and laboratories requesting digital alternatives, the team aimed to improve efficiency, reduce turnaround times and elevate the quality of their prosthetic products.
Tim said: “From the start of my career, I started completely analogue. I would set everything up by hand. In more recent years, myself and Jamie at Prime have invested really heavily into the digital side of dentistry. We’ve seen a big change with dentists wanting to use it as well.
“We’d been looking into 3D printers for a number of years. We looked into the numbers and saw how accurate everything was and, when you started to talk about micron accuracy, that’s when our ears perked up a little bit and we just knew we had to invest at that point.”
After initially testing entry-level printers, the limitations quickly became clear; fragile materials, inconsistent results and limited functionality. The team sought a solution that would deliver reliable, high-strength, full-colour dentures at scale, with minimal post-processing and maximum consistency.
The Solution:
SYS Systems, the UK Platinum Partner for Stratasys, supplied and installed the Stratasys J5 DentaJet, a cutting-edge 3D printer developed specifically for dental applications.
The lab now utilises the full-colour, multi-material capabilities of the J5 DentaJet alongside Stratasys’ TrueDent resin, a breakthrough material that combines accuracy, strength and aesthetics in one workflow.
The team can now print full-colour, monolithic dentures in a single build. By assigning specific shades to teeth and gum areas, Prime Dental Lab has removed the need for multi-stage bonding processes and eliminated the need to stock and manually match different coloured resins.
Tim said: “We saw the J5 a couple of years ago at another dental lab. They showed us what they were doing, we saw this machine and it just wowed us.
“We then heard rumours that there was going to be a denture resin coming out and just pestered everyone to SYS to see when this material was coming. When it finally came, we took the plunge, made the investment and knew it would see us right.”
The Benefits:
The shift to digital has delivered major time savings for both the lab and its clients. Internal benchmarking revealed that producing 18 dentures using traditional analogue methods took around 12 hours. Using their digital workflow, that figure dropped to six hours. With the Stratasys printer now in place, Prime Dental has shaved off yet another hour, bringing the total production time down by more than 50%.
Clinic-side, the results are equally impressive. “The reduced number of adjustments you need to make on these dentures is unbelievable, really,” Tim said.
“You just put something in someone’s mouth, and one quick tweak and it’s done. We almost book too long an appointment now, so it saves a lot of clinic time and post-processing in the lab saves a horrendous amount of time.”
Patient feedback has also been overwhelmingly positive. In blind trials where patients were asked to compare conventional and 3D-printed dentures, the digital appliances consistently came out on top.
Tim said: “Every single time [the patients] are saying the 3D printed dentures are the ones they prefer. They’re all coming back saying that they’re smaller, they’re lighter.
“None of the dentures made are smaller, they’re either bigger or exactly the same size, but the fact they’re saying they’re lighter and feel more comfortable in their mouth, is just a testament to the TrueDent material.
“It just shows that we need to only produce what the patient wants us to produce. If they have a choice and they choose TrueDent over and over again, then we need to follow that as a lab and in the clinics as well.”
Material strength has been another standout feature. Tim and the team ran their own in-house durability tests – throwing printed dentures across the lab, stomping on them and pushing them to the limit – with overwhelmingly positive results for the strength of TrueDent.
Tim said: “The first test we’ve done with all 3D printer resins is print it off, cure it, post-process and then throw it down the corridor or against the wall. We did the same with the Stratasys, straight down the corridor and not even a mark on it. So that gave us confidence. We’ve stood on it, stomped on it. It’s not breaking.
“The TrueDent material is just surpassing everything I could have imagined strength wise, as well as aesthetically.”
Why SYS Systems?
Prime Dental Lab first heard about SYS Systems through another dental lab and was immediately impressed by their professionalism and support.
Tim said: “I have nothing but admiration for everyone there. They kept us up to date with the CE marking of all the resins, the delivery of the machine came and was installed really quickly and really efficiently.”
What stood out most to Prime Dental was the level of care and service provided after the installation.
“The support we’ve had afterwards is unbelievable,” Tim said. “I’d recommend SYS to every dental lab in the country if I could. I think every denture lab should have one of these machines and anyone that wants the Stratasys J5 definitely needs to get in contact with SYS.”
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