best spatulas for ink?

[inkman996]

Here is what we do and I think just about any printer here can find the same. There is a sign shop a couple buildings up from us, we do all their apparel printing. But they go through tons of corrugated sign material, they buy in bulk 4x8 sheets. They give to us all the scrap pieces and I then cut them all into card size scrapers. They give us so much we can use them willy nilly and never ever run out. The edge on them is so clean it will scrape ink off a squeegee leaving nothing behind.

Fore warning tho never use them on the edge where the flutes come out the ink will wick up the flutes and make a mess.

[mk162]

nah, just play them like a harmonica

[Annette Wilfong]

Not a sales pitch at all. Only offering a solution.

When taking the excess ink out of the screen try using the Ultimate Clean Up Cards. There is no mess and are discarded once used. They work well for applying adhesive or scooping thick ink out of the container. You can clean squeegees and also apply blockout. If any of you are interested in getting more information on these clean up cards let me know.

First post is a sales pitch?

[IntegrityShirts]

Not a sales pitch at all. Only offering a solution.

When taking the excess ink out of the screen try using the Ultimate Clean Up Cards. There is no mess and are discarded once used. They work well for applying adhesive or scooping thick ink out of the container. You can clean squeegees and also apply blockout. If any of you are interested in getting more information on these clean up cards let me know.

First post is a sales pitch?

I use Ultimate Cleanup Cards, get them from TexSource.  Can't imagine not having them in the shop.  I probably use 10 a day.

[Admiral]

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:
[img]http://www.silkscreeningsupplies.com/files/799934/uploaded/inkgoopscoop.jpg[img]


What I like:
[img]http://www.tandjprintingsupply.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/G/o/Goop-Scoops_1.jpg[img]

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)...

Where are those white ones available?

tandjprintingsupply.com

[Screened Gear]

Why pay for clean up cards. I think most of use resale or offer business cards right. I have about 5000 cards here that I use daily to clean squeegees and goop scoops. They work perfect. One card can scrap off all the ink on a squeegee until there is just a thin deposit. One spray of press wash and one shop towel and the squeegee is clean. I have the 14 point coated cards. Even if you don't have mess up cards just order some from your bulk printer they are only like $15 per thousand.

[Prosperi-Tees]

X2 @ screened gear. But I like the 16pt cards better.

[IntegrityShirts]

Why pay for clean up cards. I think most of use resale or offer business cards right. I have about 5000 cards here that I use daily to clean squeegees and goop scoops. They work perfect. One card can scrap off all the ink on a squeegee until there is just a thin deposit. One spray of press wash and one shop towel and the squeegee is clean. I have the 14 point coated cards. Even if you don't have mess up cards just order some from your bulk printer they are only like $15 per thousand.

Hmm with the cleanup cards you can partially fold them and have a decent sized area for ink to scrape. I'd think with a business card my thumb would be covered in ink before I got one screens worth of ink back in the bucket. Also use them to scoop process inks out of quart buckets so I don't have to clean a real scoop each time I print cmyk.

I do have some business cards I loathe though and was goin to toss, I'll give them a shot but I love my cleanup cards!

[ZooCity]

Dudes, seriously, you can use a good quality offset cake knife (squared off) to pull ink out of the screen, stir ink, clean squeegees and floods.   It does all that.  Round the corners off real good, polish them and just don't go stabbing the screen and it works out great.  No need for piles of cardstock all over the shop and you'll conserve more ink.

One thing I'll say about the "cleanup cards" made for screen printing is that they are well thought out.  They made a scoop coater that the cards fit into perfectly.  I don't like manufacturing - buying- disposing anything, even if they are just 3 cents each if it's not absolutely necessary but, hey that is convenient. 
http://www.performancescreen.com/sites/performancescreen.com/files/downloads/monster-max-brochure-081210.pdf

I think I'm going to check one of these coaters out.  It's the only one I've ever seen besides the AWT dual coat that looked any good to me.  If it sucks I could just keep it around as a bucket buster. 

[Gilligan]

Hmmm... I just had a 2500 pcs biz card order that paid and then sold the business and backed out.  So I'll have plenty to use just for that, I had no idea what I was going to do with all those.


What is a "bucket buster"?

[Screened Gear]

I don't use business cards for cleaning screens. A Goop Scoop and then a squeegee works just fine. For squeegees / floods and goop Scoops I use the cards. On the squeegees I scrap them with the good scoop first to take off most the ink. Then I take the business card and scrape it until there is almost nothing left (takes just seconds) Then just a spray of press wash and a shop towel. I am sure the Clean up cards work great but so do regular old business cards.

[Gilligan]

We bought a parts washer at tractor supply and some PSC-1000 and my guy LOVES it!

[TCT]

I have whoever "the new guy" is cut up pizza boxes into 4 x 4 squares, as long as the sides are cut straight they work wonders for cleaning out screens and squeegees/flood bars...
Added bonus snack if there is dried cheese on the box!