Getting A Flexible Shine – Flexible Partial Polishing Tip

As popular as flexible partials are, there is one thing that I have heard from clinicians for YEARS, that these nylon partials are hard to adjust and polish. The recommended way is for a lab to polish a Valplast using rag wheels with pumice then Tripoli, not very practical for clinical situations. There is also the official Valplast technique to adjust and polish chairside, which uses carbide burs, green stones, and silicone acrylic polisher.

The simplest way that I have found to adjust and polish chairside is by using a silicone acrylic polisher alone. Keeping it simple is my objective: zero bur changes, minimum mess, and most importantly, not having to leave the chairside. For almost all adjustments, you will only need to use the bullet-shaped, medium grit straight hand-piece bur (Fig. 2).