Newman "CONSTANT FORCE" Squeegees?

[mimosatexas]

As seen here: http://www.stretchdevices.com/squeegees-and-floodbars

Found a couple of these for super cheap.  Wondering how they compare to standard ergo squeegees etc.  I've seen them before, but they don't seem at all popular (price?) so I was curious.

Manual version, not auto.  I already use a push stroke, which they seem to require and my press is well maintained/level.

[Gilligan]

If you want some, I have some to sell you.

[ZooCity]

They work very well but are unpopular because most cannot keep their machines in tight enough adjustment to get the advantages.  Also a b. to clean. 

I've sipped the kool aid of ultra high tension rollers and constant force squeegees and sweet it is.  Have you ever imagined printing spot colors fills onto a wet plastisol base with no flash?   

I believe that if the machines we print on were able to keep in parallel as closely as they are registered this system would have done much better.  The blades are basically giving you the ultimate push stroke and they work with the high ten mesh in a way that gives you peel and balance across the stroke like few other methods can.  The reality is that, even with regular attention to it, most presses are going to be too far out of plane for these blades to work and most press ops would probably try them and consider them bogus for that reason.  The flex in our standard squeegees, along with the rubber most of us run on our platens, does a lot to compensate for how out of whack the plane of our screens are to that of our platens. 

If you want to try them on the manual, level the press first and get the 60duro blades, the others are too hard, or maybe mine were just too old.....I actually think I have a few laying around if you want 'em.  Email me.

[jsheridan]

I'll echo Zoo in that your press needs to be in perfect parallel along with good tension and you have to push stroke them or they are frustrating to use.

I've used them quite  extensively with amazing results and seen others throw em into the wall.

[3Deep]

Saw these at a show many moons ago and yes this equipment really depends on your other equipment to get the max out of them.  I was all manual back then and saw this dude at an M&R demo table printing a orange dragon on black shirts without a white base...simple awesome, but the screen's where jack to 40n on a single pallet still very impressive.

[GaryG]

Many moons ago we were printing 25X38" sheets of transfer paper with
designs 6-up. A rep brought a set in and we gave them a try. They were about 36"wide!

Had 60" Newmans that were tight as possible and probably could of tested further,
but on 2 Saturn's and an Eclipse, regular squeegee system seemed to work better for the team.

I kept a cool purple flood bar- the shape is one neat piece of engineering using what I think is called
hydrostatic flow to push ink into mesh openings. Kind of like a wave crashing into shoreline.

[Squeegie]

I also echo what was said above...as long as your press is set up correctly they are awesome.  I was using a push stroke with a regular wooden handled squeegee before I tried these so it was not totally foreign to me.  I tried the green blades and sent them back and replaced them with the off white/beige blade.  It is softer and a little more forgiving of a less than perfect press set up. 
As already mentioned...they suck to clean.  I have a set of 6 that have sat for almost 10 years as I use the auto for virtually everything and the manual gets the odd stuff that is usually a 6 inch blade.

[mimosatexas]

Great info.  Thanks for the offer Zoo, but the guy here is selling a ton of them for a steal, so I figured there wasn't much risk in picking them up, but wanted to see what others thought about them first.  I had read about needing a well maintained press and screens and needing the push stroke.  I already use push, so that actually sounds like it would be awesome, especially since a lot of the standard wooden squeegees and duros kind of suck for it vs something like a triple duro on a metal ergo handle for example, and this is supposed to be even better.  I also use almost entirely S-mesh, so the tensions aren't as great as rollers, but I think they are a lot better than standard statics.