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We study the spreading of a Newtonian fluid by a deformable blade, a common industrial problem, characteristic of elasto-hydrodynamic situations. Here, we consider the case of a finite reservoir of liquid, emptying as the liquid is spread. We evidence the role of a central variable: the wetting length lw, which sets a boundary between the wet and dry parts of the blade. We show that the deposited film thickness e depends quadratically with lw. We study this problem experimentally and numerically by integration of the elasto-hydrodynamic equations, and finally propose a scaling law model to explain how lw influences the spreading dynamics.