The prior state of the art includes a manually movable squeegee which can be displaced in solely one direction while co-acting with the stencil to effect a printing sequence. When the squeegee, together with a print-forming substance, is located in a terminal position, a scoop is placed under the print-forming substance, the scoop and the squeegee forming a holder for bringing the substance and the squeegee to the start position and for placing said substance in front of the squeegee, wherewith the squeegee can again be displaced to the terminal position.
It is known in this manual procedure to rotate the squeegee so that a plane passing centrally therethrough forms an obtuse angle with the stencil and substrate material upon displacement of the squeegee along the stencil.
Squeegee arrangements of this kind intended for silkscreen printers are known to the art, and are intended for use when printing on material substrates whose print surfaces are not totally smooth and flat, but exhibit small promontories, for example irregularities of the kind found on printed circuit boards or cards, so as to ensure that a print-forming substance, e.g. a substance which inhibits the adhesive properties of molten solder, can also be applied effectively to the spaces located between minor promontories on the material substrate.
Various measures have also been proposed in connection with the stencil, for enabling adjustments to be made to the quantity of ink which passes through the stencil and onto the material substrate. In this regard experiments have also been carried out with different types of ink, and the viscosity of the ink, etc.