Dental impression tray

Abstract

An improved dental impression tray, to be placed under an upper jaw or over a lower jaw, combining the following features: 1. Creases or lines of perforations running through the base and side walls of the tray and the middle of the tray's handle, so that the tray can easily be broken in portions, if an impression of only one side of a jaw needs to be taken. 2. Ridges or protrusions on opposite interior walls of the tray, to better retain the rapidly hardening semi-fluid material with which the impressions of the teeth and/or gums are taken. 3. Base panels of the tray separated from the walls of the tray by gaps around their perimeters, and connected only by narrow strips of the material from which the tray is made, so that the base panels can be easily detached when desired, thus creating an opening in the bottom of the tray that may be desirable for certain forms of oral surgery, especially work involving dental implants. 4. A crease or line of perforations adjacent to the ridges or protrusions, so that flanges, forming parts of the walls opposite the base and extending beyond the ridges or protrusions, may be readily detached. Alternative embodiments may have less than all of the foregoing features.