"He who marches out of step hears another drum." ~ Ken Kesey
While still wearing the gloves I have for clean up, I just scoop ink with my hand and plop it in the screen. Then when cleaning it up just scoop up with my hands and plop back in the bucket.
That ergo scoop that aauusa posted looks interesting. If I ever order some ink from them hopefully I can remember to get a scooper to go with it.
Here it is what I use http://www.waresdirect.com/products/Restaurant-Supply/Johnson-Rose-/Offset-Spatula-73426439They are good AND cheap. A bunch or other sizes on the web site
I'm beginning to think that there are different brands and compositions of the goop scoops out there. I've never had one bend easily, or break, or have any ink dry up on one. The complaints I'm reading just don't sound anything like the one's I've got. They clean up easily however you choose to do it and they remove the ink as good as any other device besides a squeegee blade. I've seen them in yellow and white, the white ones are a little stiffer and I think I have a few yellow ones that bend a little easier than the majority of them do. I know we all do things differently and get different results with all of our products, but scooping ink really isn't one of those things that I would think would have that much subjectivity in their use. I find this interesting.
You guys that don't like goop scoops are using the wrong ones. We use ones where the insert between the handle and the scoop part is angled so you can actually put it on the side of the ink bucket and keep the handle clean easily. They don't bend much at all and of course are very inexpensive. We had ordered 12-24 from someone else and the flex like crazy so they are terrible with thick inks / mixing. They don't have an angle cut into it near the handle so you can't keep it on the edge of the ink bucket either.I also don't want to use metal for fear of stabbing mesh, we use a lot of S thread mesh.CRAP:What I like:We only use the large ones, work better for quarts than the small ones, much cleaner. Also do people not tend to keep handles clean? I hate the downtime and messiness of ink on the handle part, so I do with the goop scoops had 1-2" longer handles(a few people have trouble keeping them clean so I have to make them clean it up after they use it)...