Patient Visit 4

 Laboratory Procedures

Finishing and Polishing

1. Equipment and Materials

a. Maxillary and mandibular complete dentures separated from the master casts.

b. Grinding lathe

c. Polishing lathe with pumice

d. brushes and rag wheels suitable for polishing

e. Polishing compound

f. No. 6 or 8 round bur

g. Carbide acrylic burs

Procedure

a. Using a carbide acrylic bur in the lathe, remove any acrylic flash and bulk produced when sealing the trial dentures to master casts.

b. Place small black bristle brush in the polishing lathe on low speed. Place pumice and disinfectant into pan. Using a generous amount of pumice, polish the stippled areas, the portion of the denture base near the cervical portions of the teeth and the rugae area. Never polish the tissue surface of a denture.

c. Place a large black bristle brush in the polishing lathe on high speed. Using generous amounts of pumice, polish the lingual flanges of the mandibular, the posterior of the maxillary denture and the lingual festooning adjacent to the denture teeth .

d. Wet a rag wheel designated for use with pumice. At high speed with generous amounts of pumice, Polish all denture base areas.

e. Rinse off the pumice and dry. Check areas that are not polished and re-polish until smooth

f. When you have achieved a uniformly smooth denture base surface, dry the denture thoroughly.  Place the rag wheel designated for high shine in the lathe at low speed and polish the denture with polishing compound.

g. Place the dentures in the general purpose (blue) solution in the ultrasonic cleaner for a few minutes to remove any polishing compound.

You have finished and polished your complete dentures.  You must now make remount casts and remount the maxillary dentures in preparation for your next patient visit.
On receiving the processed complete denture from the laboratory BEFORE THE DELIVERY APPOINTMENT you must 1) make maxillary and mandibular remount casts and 2) mount the maxillary remount cast on the articulator using the face bow remount jig.  This must be done before the denture placement appointment because you will not have sufficient time to complete the denture delivery procedures if you do not plan ahead.  The remount casts, occlusal index, and processed dentures must be graded by your faculty prior to your patient visit for denture delivery.