Squeegee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A squeegee is a tool with a flat, smooth rubber blade, used to remove or control the flow of liquid on a flat surface. It is used for cleaning and in printing.
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[edit] Cleaning
The original squeegee was the squilgee, a long-handled, wooden-bladed tool fishermen used to scrape their boat decks.
The best-known of these tools is probably the hand-held window squeegee, used to remove the cleaning fluid or water from a glass surface. A soapy solution acts as a lubricant and breaks up the dirt, then the squeegee is used to draw the now water-borne dirt off the glass leaving a perfectly clean surface. The "swivel method", or "fan method" as it is referred to by professionals, uses a series of strokes combined with turns that hold the water away from the leading edge of the squeegee; when the turn is completed in the opposing direction, there is no water and no dirt left isolated. If a few spots are missed, a chamois leather cloth works better for touch up than a towel of cloth or paper.
According to Guinness World Records, the world's fastest window cleaner is Terry Burrows of South Ockendon, Essex, England, who cleaned three standard 45-inch x 45-inch office windows set in a frame in 9.24 seconds at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham in March 2005. He used an 11.8-inch squeegee and 2.4 gallons of water.[1]
In the 20th century, window washers began using the Chicago squeegee, a bulky tool with two heavy pink rubber blades. Changing the blades required the loosening of twelve separate screws. The modern single-blade window cleaning squeegee was patented by Ettore Steccone in 1936; it was made of lightweight brass with a very flexible and sharp rubber blade. The Ettore Products Co. is still the leader in the squeegee market today.[2]
Hospitals sometimes use the hand-held squeegee to clean up any spills that occur in operating rooms or regular patient rooms as the design of the squeegee lends itself towards a more sanitary clean up.
Another type of squeegee, which looks similar to the window squeegee but has a long handle similar to a push broom, is often used to clean floors after they have been sprayed with water or soap, to push the water into drains. This is often used in places that need the floors cleaned regularly, such as meat departments in supermarkets or army barracks.
The sometimes pejorative term "squeegee kid" or "squeegee guy" is applied to those who apply a squeegee or rag to the windows of stationary or slow-moving cars stuck in traffic (usually around stop lights where begging is common), and then accept donations for their services, which may or may not actually improve the visibility through the window.
During the September 11, 2001 attacks, window washer Jan Demczur used a squeegee to free himself and five others from an elevator shaft in the World Trade Center.[3]
[edit] Printing
In screen printing, a squeegee is used to spread ink evenly across the back of a stencil or silkscreen, making a clean image on the printed surface. Silk screen squeegees usually have much thicker and less flexible blades than the window cleaning variety.
A squeegee is also used in photography printing to dry the paper after it is washed, preventing wrinkles.
[edit] Other uses
Stiff-bladed squeegees are also used to apply grout when tiling.
