Amalgam Instruments
13 products
About amalgam instruments
Amalgam instruments are the tools amalgam is placed with: the FDA list names the amalgam carrier, the condenser, the amalgam carver and the burnisher. They follow the steps the ADA describes for an amalgam filling — condensation, carving and finishing. To burnish is to make a surface shiny by rubbing it, and also to improve the fit of a restoration at its margin by rubbing the margin with an instrument.
For a material that is pressed into the cavity and then cut back; a ball burnisher has rounded ends used to smooth and polish the restorative material.
Sources: FDA 21 CFR 872.4565, Dental hand instrument · ADA Oral Health Topics: Amalgam · The Glossary of Prosthodontic Terms, 9th edition (J Prosthet Dent 2017) · Deep learning-based object detection of restorative dental instruments, 2025 (Sci Rep)