Q. What's the best way to mix alginate?

A. Measure out your alginate and put it in a rubber mixing bowl.

Measure out your water and pour it into the alginate. Stir the mixture with a stiff, wide bladed spatula for about 10-15 seconds.

Place the bowl in the palm of your hand and spatulate the mass of alginate firmly for about 5 seconds.

Scoop up all the alginate on the spatula and scrape it off on the side of the bowl.

Spatulate the alginate mass firmly for another 5 seconds, scoop it up, scrape it off and repeat until the mass is smooth.

Total mixing and spatulation time should be approximately 40-45 seconds.

Q. How long before we have to pour our model?

A. With alginate its always better to pour your model quickly. We recommend that you consider the impression taking and the model pour as a single procedure. If you can't pour immediately, loosely cover the impression with a wet paper towel.

Q. How do we sterilize a SNAP2 impression?

A. You can't really "sterilize" an alginate impression. The best we can do is "disinfect" it by spraying it with a disinfecting solution, covering it with a wet paper towel, waiting about 5 minutes, rinsing and pouring. The lab will treat any alginate impression as "non-sterile" and take appropriate precautions.

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