Dental Splint CAD Design

Splint CAD design covers high-volume, routine cases that still deserve real precision. We design Michigan splints, soft and hard night guards, and bite planes to your prescription, freeing your in-house team for more complex restorative work instead of routine occlusal appliances.

Why labs outsource splint CAD design

Night guards and occlusal splints rarely get the design time they need when they compete for the same bench hours as crown, bridge and implant cases. They are high-volume and routine, but routine does not mean low-stakes — a poorly fitted splint fails at the one thing it is meant to do. Outsourcing splint CAD design keeps these cases moving without pulling a senior designer off higher-complexity work.

We design in exocad and 3Shape Dental System to your specified splint type, thickness and coverage, so the finished design matches what you prescribed rather than a generic default template.

What is included in every splint CAD design case

Both bruxism guards and TMD management splints are part of the standard service — Michigan and stabilization splints for TMD cases, hard or soft night guards for bruxism, and dual-laminate designs when a case calls for both rigidity and comfort. Tell us whether you want canine guidance, group function or a flat anterior ramp and we design to that occlusal scheme specifically.

Every case returns a splint design ready to print or mill, matched to the upper and lower arch scan and bite registration you submit, with no separate approval round needed unless you request a revision.

Quality control and turnaround

Occlusal contact scheme, even material thickness and retention, and border extension and comfort are checked on every design before it is marked ready. Standard turnaround is 8 hours, which keeps splint cases from becoming a bottleneck in your weekly schedule.

Revisions stay within the original prescription scope and are unlimited, so a scheme adjustment after the first design does not cost you anything extra.

Getting started

Splint cases pair naturally with other restorative work — if your case mix also includes crown and bridge design, our crown and bridge CAD design service covers that workflow, or see the full services overview for everything else we design.

Most labs start by sending a handful of splint cases to check turnaround and occlusal accuracy against their own standard before routing all routine splint volume through the portal. Because these are typically same-day cases, that evaluation period is short compared with more complex restoration types.

Send your arch scans and bite registration through the client portal along with the splint type and desired thickness, and a technician will have the design back within the standard 8-hour window.

Splint CAD design outsourcing works for practices of any size, from a solo clinician sending a couple of night guard cases a month to a multi-location group standardizing occlusal appliance quality across every site. The review checklist applies the same way regardless of how many cases arrive in a given week.

If you are unsure which splint type fits a particular case, our team can advise based on the bite registration and your clinical notes before design work begins, so the wrong appliance type never makes it past the planning stage.

Splint CAD design is a good starting point for labs new to outsourcing digital design generally, since the case type is lower-risk than a full-arch or implant restoration while still demonstrating turnaround and quality on real cases before you commit more volume.

That same-day turnaround also makes splint CAD design a practical way to trial our broader outsourcing workflow before sending higher-complexity restorative cases through the portal.