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Dental casting materials, whose main component is alpha gypsum (i.e., alpha-calcium sulfate hemihydrate), designed to make a positive copy of a given area of the oral cavity, using a mold previously taken at the dentist\'s office. These dental casting materials consist of a powder that is mixed with water and then poured into a mold which contains a hollow cavity of an appropriate shape to fit teeth and/or oral tissue, allowed to solidify and then ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the process. Dental stones have considerable strength and may originally be white but are generally colored for identification purposes; they also include various modifiers to regulate setting time and setting expansion. Dental stones are classified according to the physical characteristics (e.g., strength) in Class I, II and III respectively. They are used in dental laboratories to make casts and dies which in turn are used to make prostheses (e.g., gold crowns) and/or orthodontic appliances.
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