Working with composite

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What's a good tip to prevent resin composite sticking to your hand instrument when doing restorations? We recently started working with composites, and whenever I try to shape the cusp/ridge/fossa anatomy, the composite sticks slightly to the working tip of my hand instrument and thus gets distorted when I try sculpting it. Does conditioning the instrument tip with alcohol or some other solution resolve this issue...? Any helpful tips appreciated!

 

[cooliyak]

What's a good tip to prevent resin composite sticking to your hand instrument when doing restorations? We recently started working with composites, and whenever I try to shape the cusp/ridge/fossa anatomy, the composite sticks slightly to the working tip of my hand instrument and thus gets distorted when I try sculpting it. Does conditioning the instrument tip with alcohol or some other solution resolve this issue...? Any helpful tips appreciated!

Clean instruments. Alcohol is what I have heard is recommended. Wipe it w/ alcohol and then let it dry off. It doesn’t always work super well, but it does work. There are also some products you can buy that are made specifically to prevent that, but I haven’t tried them. Some people dip their instrument in bond, but I heard that isn’t best (someone quoted a study at one point about how it weakens the composite, but I don’t do it so I didn’t care enough to remember what it was or to look it up later). Using wiping/swiping motions instead of pecking will also help it not stick. I have my EFDA do most of my fillings nowadays so that is the extent of my advice.

 

[free99]

Clean instruments. Alcohol is what I have heard is recommended. Wipe it w/ alcohol and then let it dry off. It doesn’t always work super well, but it does work. There are also some products you can buy that are made specifically to prevent that, but I haven’t tried them. Some people dip their instrument in bond, but I heard that isn’t best (someone quoted a study at one point, but I don’t do it so I didn’t care enough to remember what it was or to look it up later). Using wiping/swiping motions instead of pecking will also help it not stick. I have my EFDA do most of my fillings nowadays so that is the extent of my advice.

What state are you in? I'm in peds, would love to get some EFDAs but it's not allowed in NYS.

https://www.aapd.org/assets/1/7/StateLawsonDAs.pdf

 

[cooliyak]

What state are you in? I'm in peds, would love to get some EFDAs but it's not allowed in NYS.

https://www.aapd.org/assets/1/7/StateLawsonDAs.pdf

Colorado. They allow EFDAs/EDDAs function in the grey area of the law. They don’t officially recognize it, but they also don’t restrict it.

 

[BluntForceTrauma]

What's a good tip to prevent resin composite sticking to your hand instrument when doing restorations? We recently started working with composites, and whenever I try to shape the cusp/ridge/fossa anatomy, the composite sticks slightly to the working tip of my hand instrument and thus gets distorted when I try sculpting it. Does conditioning the instrument tip with alcohol or some other solution resolve this issue...? Any helpful tips appreciated!

Add bonding agent to your glove and then swish the instrument in that a little bit. Just enough to coat it, but not enough to dilute the composite when you're working with it.

Does wonders.

 

[lemoncurry]

Add bonding agent to your glove and then swish the instrument in that a little bit. Just enough to coat it, but not enough to dilute the composite when you're working with it.

Does wonders.

Yep. Dip it in the bonding agent.

 

[TanMan]

What's a good tip to prevent resin composite sticking to your hand instrument when doing restorations? We recently started working with composites, and whenever I try to shape the cusp/ridge/fossa anatomy, the composite sticks slightly to the working tip of my hand instrument and thus gets distorted when I try sculpting it. Does conditioning the instrument tip with alcohol or some other solution resolve this issue...? Any helpful tips appreciated!

Use bulk-fill flowable. Super fast, super easy, and you don't have to enlarge your preps so much just for convenience form. I can make my occlusal preps as skinny as a 22-25ga grey/blue tip and can cure up to 5mm with the 1 second curing light (I do 3 seconds just in case).

If you really have to use packable, use bond. If you want secondary/tertiary anatomy, bond will make your composite too soft. Push laterally to make a swiping motion to form your grooves. In the real world, you'll probably end up destroying all of that for one of two reasons... adjusting occlusion or patient gets food stuck in all your anatomy. I had my friend remove grooves that were beautifully made in one of my crowns. The reason? I kept getting food stuck in them.