Show Notes
Beyond Scaling: How to Get More From Your Ultrasonic
Do you really need your ultrasonic on 100%? (Probably not — and it may be costing you precision.) Which part of the tip should actually be touching the tooth — and is that why the hygienists keep complaining about blunt tips? Could the scaler tip you already own refine your margins, find a calcified canal and cut gutta-percha like a hot knife through butter? And if you’re in the market for a new unit, which features are actually worth paying for? Every dentist uses an ultrasonic — but most of us use it as a perio tool and nothing more. In this episode, Dr Hussain Hassanali, a general dentist who has gone properly geeky on ultrasonics, walks through how they really remove tooth tissue and how to put them to work in restorative dentistry and endo. It’s foundational, practical, and full of things you can try at your next session. Jaz’s biggest takeaway? Stop whacking the power up to 100%.
Protrusive Dental Pearl: Trim Gutta-Percha With Your Scaler Tip
You’ve just obturated a canal and need to remove the excess gutta-percha. The old ways: heat a ball burnisher in the flame until it glows red (that smell, and the GP smearing everywhere — or lifting out entirely because the sealer hasn’t set), or sink a long-neck bur into the GP while it spins and hope you don’t gouge the dentine. Instead, take your bog-standard ultrasonic scaler tip, turn the water off, and set the power to around 10%. Sweep it across the orifice and it cuts through gutta-percha like a hot knife through butter — the water is off because here you want the heat. Then drop the power right down (around 2%) and gently compact the coronal GP, leaving roughly 1–1.5 mm of space for your restorative material to lock into the orifice. No flame, no burn risk, and a thin tip that doesn’t block your view. Try it once and you won’t go back to heated pluggers.
What You’ll Take From This Episode
The three rules of the ultrasonic — why it abrades rather than cuts, why the side of the tip beats the pointed end, and why power is a dial, not a switch. A settings guide by task — where to start for enamel margins, fissures, soft dentine, endo access and gutta-percha. Standard tip or specialist tip? — when the tip you already own is enough, and when diamond-coated tips earn their place. Water on or water off? — the two endo jobs where the water has to go off. Buying an ultrasonic — piezo versus magnetostrictive, and the one feature that changes patient comfort.
Highlights of This Episode 00:00 TEASER 00:59 Ultrasonic Scaler Tips Every Dentist Should Know 04:30 Why Ultrasonics Are Underused in General Dentistry 07:08 What Power Setting to Use When Cleaning Enamel Margins 09:28 Which Part of the Ultrasonic Tip Should You Use? 11:34 Ultrasonic Power Settings for Occlusal Fissures 13:47 Piezoelectric vs Magnetostrictive Scalers: Does It Matter? 21:37 Ultrasonics for PRRs, Fissure Sealants and Anxious Children 28:36 Selective Caries Removal With an Ultrasonic 30:42 Refining Crown and Onlay Margins With Ultrasonic Tips 39:02 Ultrasonics in Endo: Irrigant Activation and Finding Canals 45:35 How to Trim Gutta-Percha With an Ultrasonic 51:37 The Most Common Ultrasonic Mistake: Too Much Power 54:29 What to Look for When Buying an Ultrasonic Scaler 57:39 Are Ultrasonic Scalers Safe With Pacemakers? 1:00:55 Cementing Onlays With Heated Composite: Do Ultrasonic Tips Help? 01:09:01 OUTRO
From the Guest Dr Hussein Hassanali is a dentist at Thorpe Dental Group and Implant Suite in York. He qualified from the University of Liverpool in 2009, completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Restorative and Aesthetic Dentistry in 2020, and is particularly passionate about preventative and minimally invasive dentistry — which is what led him down the ultrasonics rabbit hole. He is happy to answer specific questions, and he’s open to building a hands-on course if there’s demand. 👉 Dr Hussein Hassanali at Thorpe Dental Group, York
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