Tensile bond strength of silver solder and super micro point used for orthodontic appliances

Abstract

The purpose ofthis study was to compare the tensile bond strength of silver alloy and super micro point solders to stainless steel wires. Four orthodontic stainless steel wires (0,017", 0,018", 0,020" and 0,021 X 0,025") were soldered six times with each of the two solder types, making a total of 48 soldering sites. A torch gas-air soldering (Miniflan) and a flux Rock Mountain 41 were used for the silver solder. The super micro point solder was done using a Kernit-2700 unit. After soldered, the specimens were submitted to tensile bond strength testing using a universal testing machine (Otto Wolpert - Werke) with a crosshead speed of 6 mm/s. The silver solder showed higher tensile bond strengths than the super micro point solder (p>0.05). Both types of solder showed no statistical differences with wires of same thickness, except for the 0,021" wrre. Key words: orthodontic wire, solder, tensile bond strength.