I’m just starting out in screen printing. I was wondering how to choose a screenprinting squeegee. I’ve noticed there are different types of blades, how are they different and how can they be used?
Squeegee blades come in different sizes and levels of hardness. The standard blade size, that most commonly used, is the one with a 50×9 mm section, exactly like the one you have.
There are blades with different section sizes, these are necessary for automatic machines and they have a specific blade holder.
The blade can also have different levels of hardness, the unit of measure for which is the Shore.
The average hardness, appropriate for most uses, is 75 Shore and normally blades of this hardness are green (but the choice of colour is up to the manufacturer).
A softer blade (60-65 Shore) is normally brown and is used to increase the amount of ink remaining on the item you’re printing on.
Harder blades (80-85 Shore and above) are normally white or blue and are used on fast, automatic machines for printing halftone images; with these levels of hardness the amount of ink remaining is reduced thus delivering a more precise result.
Our standard blade, and we sell 100 of these to every one of all the other blades we sell, has a 50×9 mm section, it’s green and has a hardness of 75 Shore.