FAQ
What is a stick bite registration?
A straight answer first, then the context behind it, from the technicians who do the work.
THE SHORT ANSWER
A stick bite registration is a chairside record that captures the relationship between the patient's maxillary arch and a facial reference plane, typically using a wooden or acrylic stick held between the teeth and aligned with the interpupillary line. The lab uses this record to mount the case on an articulator at the correct cant, reducing the chance of a canted restoration on delivery.
THE CONTEXT
What sits behind it
When a dentist sends a full-arch or complex anterior case without a facebow or stick bite, the lab has to guess the mounting orientation. That guess introduces cant error that shows up only after the patient is in the chair. A stick bite takes under two minutes to capture and gives the technician a reliable horizontal reference tied to the patient's actual facial plane, not an averaged anatomical estimate.
For prosthodontists and restorative dentists managing multi-unit anterior cases, the stick bite is especially valuable. Shade and form can be dialed in at the wax-try-in stage, but a cant problem is harder to correct at that point without starting over. Submitting the stick bite with the initial case submission shortens the correction loop by catching orientation errors before any ceramic is fired.
At Dani Dental, cases that arrive with a stick bite registration and a full intraoral scan are mounted digitally against the facial reference, then verified before the CAD design is approved. That step is part of the pre-production checklist, not an afterthought. Technicians flag missing orientation records before cutting any material, which keeps remake risk low on the cases where cant error is most likely to matter.
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