The Application of Dental Impression Materials
Watch Dental Video about Dental Impression Materials
This replica is later filled with plaster in order to provide the technician with an exact model of your teeth. Based on these plaster casts, the technician is able to produce the required dentures. The requirements for impression materials are good fluidity and moisture tolerance. This allows for exact borders of the replica structures. Exact borders are important in order to achieve an exact denture fit. Furthermore, the material needs to harden quickly at a certain point in time, but must remain malleable long enough to be worked on.
Most materials are made up of two components that are mixed together immediately before usage and then begin to harden. In the past (and sometimes still today because of financial reasons) self-mixing materials activated by water were used. It is almost impossible to achieve the correct concentrations. Inaccurate concentrations can cause deformation of the impression resulting in a leaking denture.
Good impression quality is achieved with pre-produced cartridges. Material usage is higher, but the materials are mixed at specifically defined rates. The technician gets a precise impression and you get a tight, well-fitting denture. However, correct mixing and usage of appropriate materials is not the only thing that’s important: Packaging and transport of the impression is just as important, as is the amount of time the impression spends in the patient’s mouth. All of these steps should be carried out in accordance with the manufacturer’s specifications in order to avoid any deformations. Long transportation times to the technician, for example to a technician in China, will rarely result in quality work.
You can learn more about this topic in the videos entitled "Dental Impression", "Setting Time" and "Partial Spoon".
Click here to see the video: Impression Materials