The purpose of this study was to compare the apical seal following root canal shaping by different methods. From fourty extracted mandibular 1st and 2nd molars, fourty mesial roots whose canals have some degree of curvature were selected. The mesiobuccal root portion including mesiobuccal portion of a crown was sectioned in each molar. After access cavity preparation for the mesiobuccal canal, working length was determined with # 10 K-file. The sectioned roots were implanted in acrylic resin block and randomly divided into four groups. The canals of group I were shaped by step-down/balanced force, group II by stepdown/step-back, group III by step-back and group IV by conventional method. All of the shaped canals were obturated by Thermafil method and access cavities were filled with IRM. The roots were removed from acrylic resin block and placed in 100 % humidity for 7days. Except the root surfaces of apical 2mm, the root surfaces were nail-varnished 3 times. After the roots were placed in 700 torr vacuum pressure for 15 minutes, they were immersed in 2% methylene blue solution for 4 days. Nail varnishes were removed with acetone. After that, the roots were decalcified in 5 % nitric acid and dehydrated with alcohol series. Transparent specimens were made by methyl salicylate and the quality of apical seal was assessed by measuring the leakage linearly. The results were as follows. 1. The leakage in canals shaped by step-down/balanced force method was significantly less than that in canals shaped by step-back method(P<0.05) and was less but not statistically than that in canals shaped by step-down/step-back method (P>0.05). 2. The leakage in canals shaped by step-down/step-back method was less than that in canals shaped by step-back method, but there was no statistical significance(P>0.05). 3. The leakage in canals shaped by conventional method was significantly more than that in canals shaped by step-down/balanced force, step-down/step-back and step-back method (P<0.05).