Tricks of the trade: sandblasting – ‘made safe’

Bracket failure may occur in practice due to the patient applying inappropriate force or due to poor bonding technique. This necessitates rebonding or the bonding of a new bracket. Sometimes repositioning of brackets to achieve the final alignment and root parallelism is also needed. It has been reported that sandblasting bracket bases greatly increases their retentive surfaces. Buyukyilmaz and Zachrisson found that sandblasting improves the retention and increases the bond strength when bonding to gold, porcelain and amalgam and also reported that sandblasting lower lingual retainer wires before bonding increases their bond strength.¹ Sandblasting can also be used for the removal of composite from loose brackets before rebonding and to increase the retentiveness of stainless steel bands.²

Microetcher is the most commonly used machine for sandblasting. However, the airborne debris can lead to respiratory problems for clinicians, as well as creating a mess in the surgery.

The authors suggest a simple, inexpensive device to avoid the problems. A plastic tube from straight rectangular orthodontic archwire packaging has been utilized (Figure 1). A cap can be placed at the top or modified with the insertion of a suction tip, depending upon whether the alumina particles need to be collected or to be suctioned by the tip (Figures 2 and 3). A hole is drilled into the plastic tube to allow insertion of the Microetcher tip (Figure 4). A bracket can then be inserted into the tube with the help of the bracket holder and sandblasting can then follow as usual (Figure 5).