Handling greenstick

Dr. Gary smith handles greenstick like a professional, He recently showed me his method of handling greenstick for border moulding.

He explains to the patient that he is going to place wax around the borders to capture the periphery. It will be a little warm but he doesn't want it to hurt the patient.

He puts the head of the greenstick right at the centre of the blue flame (where the gas is unburnt) but doesn't really spin it around. He doesn't want the core of the greenstick to be melted or the end will sag. He only heads one side of the greenstick. After about 2 seconds, He takes it out and dabs the soft side onto the tray/denture in a tapping motion. This can cause voids and irregularities so he heats the greenstick on the tray over a flame and these will blend out. If he didn't do this then there would be characteristic streaks on the greenstick. It is dipped into hot water more to cool it down than anything (in my opinion) and to keep it soft.  then it is carefully placed in the patient's mouth and border moulded. Greenstick will only stick to dry surfaces so the tray must always be dried after being wetted with tissue or gauze. After border moulding we are looking for a matte surface on the greenstick meaning it has touched the tissues. If it is shiny, add more greenstick to the dry surface and try again. We only want a little bit of greenstick to be used not a whole stick. This relies on the tray being pretty close to the extensions in the mouth.