Dental polishers
Dental Polishers
In dentistry and dental technology very different materials require smoothing and polishing. This ranges from exceptionally hard natural tooth enamel to the surfaces of filling materials (composites, compomers or amalgam), fixed restorations (metal alloys or ceramics), implant components (titanium, other metals or zirconia), appliances, splints or dentures (all types of hard and soft materials).
The dental polishers used in standard handpieces are rotary instruments with a metal or plastic shank. The smoothing and polishing section of the instrument is attached to the shank – whether rigidly connected or via press-on, clamp or screw connection (e.g. with mandrels). Some polishers are not active themselves and require the additional use of polishing pastes as consumable materials (in particular for prophylaxis).
Easy, clean results are produced with all other polishers. In this case the working section is made of rubber or silicone. Abrasive materials (e.g., silicon carbide or corundum and mainly diamonds are used for very hard materials, in particular ceramics) of a suitable, selected grit size are embedded in the surface or impregnate the entire working section.
A wide range of polisher shapes is available for different applications. Typical shapes are points, cups and discs for the dental practice and wheels, cylinders/arbor bands and torpedoes for the dental laboratory.
A dental polisher
Surfaces of materials are smoothed and polished in one or more working stages. Technically, the individual processing stages vary either in the different pressure applied and/or motor speed but mainly by using abrasives/polishers with different degrees of hardness and grit sizes (specific for each stage). Polishing techniques often differentiate between two-step pre-polishing (coarse polish) and high-lustre polishing (fine polish), depending on the material, initial condition, required final state and up to three steps. The first/coarsest step is frequently a transition from preparing/contouring; at this stage significant (macroscopic) amounts of material are still removed. In the subsequent steps the main focus of the work is more on reducing (increasingly microscopic) surface irregularities (surface roughness). The final step produces a smooth surface, in general with a silky sheen or high-lustre/shining finish. Often the different colours of the polishers facilitate the assignment of specific instruments to the respective working stages. All diamond grit polishers have uniformly standardised coloured rings for identifying the different fineness of each polishing step.
To rule out cross contamination between patients in clinical dental medical applications, preference should be given to polishers, which are either suitable for sterilisation in an autoclave to ensure safe multiple use or which are designed as single-use products from the outset (use for one single patient only).
Want to give it a try ...
... or need professional advice?
Get in touch with us or click Contact.
Word of the day
| English | German |
|---|---|
| osteotomy instruments | Osteotomiebesteck |
Focus text of the month
Bite registration material Bite registration material
In addition to increasingly popular, yet technically still very costly primary digital (virtual) procedures, analogue registration methods are still mainly used today. Reversible thermoplastic (wax, resin, gutta percha), chemically-curing (ZnO, acrylics) and irreversible elastic (e.g. PVS = polyvinyl siloxane) bite registration materials are generally available for analogue registrations. These are applied either directly on natural or prosthetic opposing teeth or used for the fixation/indexing of custom-fabricated bite blocks, in full and partial denture prosthetics, for example in the form of an acrylic base (previously also shellac) with wax bite rims attached or as a connection between the upper and lower plates (acrylic, metal) in Gothic arch registration.
Addition-curing silicone bite registration materials (A-silicones), which are closely related to impression materials, offer the advantages of flowability (low bite resistance, avoids bite displacement) and positional stability (no uncontrolled flow) due to thixotropy, detailed representation (crisp details), dimensional stability (withdrawal from undercuts), thermal stability, good processability (grinding and/or trimming) and insensitivity to moisture or mechanical stress (compressive, tensile) after curing. Colour, transparency or opacity, setting time and final hardness (Shore A to Shore D), and scannability can be modified to a wide extent, depending on the area of application. They are used mainly as two-component bite registration materials (base + catalyst/activator) in standardised cartridges, which are mixed and applied using mixing guns and mixing tips. |
Bite registration material
Zink oxide bite registration material
Silicone bite registration (check)