Next the assistant cures the bonding material with an ultra violet light which begins the curing process in the bonding material. The bonding material doesn't set up until the light activates it. That we, we have plenty of time to adjust the position of each bracket precisely. Once all the brackets are on and the bonding material set completely, which only takes about five minutes, we are not ready to place the first wire in the bracket. The first wire we use is the thermally activated soft wire which produces very low forces and moves the teeth gently.
Thermal wire is soft a room temperature and stiffens with body temperature.
If the teeth are really crowded, then we chill the wire before placing it to make it really soft before we put the wire in the bracket. The thermal wire is woven around and through each bracket. When one or two teeth are just too far out of line, we will skip those teeth and come back and engage them in the bracket later. The wire is held in place with the colored ligatures which are placed on each tooth per the patient's request for a given color or pattern. In this case, Brittany wanted two colors and them alternated.