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ROLLERS When I started painting in the mid 70s, rollers were a normal sort of tool to use, and they were around for quite awhile before as well. With normal interior wall, ceiling and door painting, rollers are used pretty much all the time. I personally can’t imagine painting a whole wall with a brush, but when I was in England in the 80s there still were plenty of ‘old boys’ who did everything with a large paint brush. Lots of brush strokes and texture to be sure, so if you are looking for that kind of look - go for it. But in most cases, use a roller. It will make for a faster job and a smoother wall. Today I’m just going to talk about standard kinds of rollers, not the specialty ones. Unless you were born on Mars and just got here a couple days ago, you will know that a paint roller is a cylindrical looking thing, kinda hairy, and you get paint on it and roll the paint onto the wall. Right? Right! Now this tool is two pieces: you have a roller handle, and roller sleeve. The handle is sometimes called a cage, and the sleeve is also called a cover, refill - or just a roller... The handles are most often meant to hold a sleeve that is 9 ½" long (240mm). There are smaller ones, and even bigger ones - but this is the standard and the most common size. So the standard sleeves are also this length. Then you have depth of pile - or just how hairy can your roller get?? Well, they come in lots of thicknesses and the standard for regular wall painting would be between 3/8" and 1/2" ( 10mm and 15mm). I usually use a 15mm pile for painting smooth walls with latex paint, and 10mm for painting smooth walls with oil based paint. When you roll a wall you always get a subtle texture from the roller. This is called "orange peel" texture, and you don’t want too much of it. You only want to see the texture when you stand about one foot away from the wall and really look for it. You don’t want to notice it otherwise. So if you use too thick of a pile, or if you put too much paint on, you will get too much texture. You can also cut down on the "orange peel" effect by using a finer pile roller. Perhaps a 10mm roller for latex, and as little as a 5mm pile roller for oil. In fact, when I roll doors I often do this - because I like my doors to look super-smooth. If you have a textured wall you want to paint - or a textured ceiling, then you want to use a heavier pile roller. The heavier the texture, the thicker the roller. You can also use a split-foam roller on stucco or stipple ceilings, but that will be discussed in another chapter. As with everything in life, there are levels of quality with all rollers. As a rule, you get what you pay for. For normal painting you don’t have to buy the most expensive roller you can find, but I would recommend something decent. I have not used a cheap roller for so long that I don’t even know what problems they would bring, but I do remember that some cheap rollers used to have a cheap cardboard core - similar to a paper towel roll. And the cardboard will start to fall apart after awhile when latex (water based paints) started to soak into the core. Most decent cores are now made of plastic. Though I do see treated cardboard ones. The treated ones are somewhat waterproof and do not fall apart. These sort of problems are pretty much non-existant with any medium or high quality roller sleeve. I can use the same sleeve for weeks on a job. If I’m using the same color, painting a large building I just throw them in a bucket, cover them with water, and give them a quick clean in the morning and keep painting. Be sure to get most of the excess water out before you start though. This is for latex paint only! Actually you can do it with oil paint too, but you have to have a roller spinner to get ALL of the water off the roller before you start painting again, and that’s not something the average do-it-yourselfer is going to want to do, so not another word on that... You can also just clean the roller completely everyday. With latex you just use a sink and warm water. Massaging the roller much like you would wash your hair, and changing the water regularly until no more paint comes out. It’s fairly time-consuming - about 15 min per roller. With oil paint you can wash the roller pretty much the same way - except NOT in the sink, and NOT with water. Use must use mineral spirits. Sometimes called solvent, or varsol. You will need at least a quart of solvent and a separate basin to wash in. Plus some sort of container to put the dirty solvent in, and a funnel to get it from the basin into your storage container. It’s definitely more trouble than cleaning a latex roller. You can also wrap your oil rollers tightly in plastic. It you manage to completely cover it up - still on the handle - nice and tight with no air pockets, it will be ok the next day. If any air at all gets in you will find crusty bits of dried paint here and there. Which will come off eventually on your wall or door. Not good. Most often what I do is tightly wrap my roller, handle and all, then double bag it in a big black garbage bag and throw it in the deep freeze. 10 minutes of thawing in the morning and it’s ready to go again. Works great! This is only for rollers used with oil based paint, NOT latex. You can wrap latex rollers up in plastic, but don't put them in the freezer - you mustn't freeze latex paint - it turns into cottage cheese. Don't eat it either. But most of the time, when I’m finished with that particular color, I just throw the roller sleeve away, and wipe the excess paint of the collar of the handle. You might decide to do the same. At least with oil paint. When you add up the cost of the solvent, the hassle of disposing of the solvent (do NOT put it down the drain, or throw in on the neighbor’s lawn) plus the time of the actual cleaning - it’s just not worth it.. With latex maybe not. If you are painting your whole house with 14 different colors of latex, you might opt to clean your rollers rather than buy them by the dozen. One more thing: Rollers shed. Just like dogs. Some shed a little, some shed a lot. Just like dogs. Usually the more expensive ones shed less. And once they are washed once, they usually do not shed at all. You can buy ones that are called "lint free" but even they shed a little with oil paint. Generally latex does not cause rollers to shed, but oil does. When painting with latex, all I do with my rollers is fluff em up a little and try to sort of "wipe" any excess lint off them. I am especially fussy about the ends where bits of the pile tend to come off more than in the middle. With oil paint you have to be even more fussy. Even "lint free" rollers can and will shed when using oil paint. If you don’t want to shave the wall with a Trac II after your paint job I recommend pre-washing your rollers the night before - so they can dry overnight. Just use the sink and warm water. If you find a lot of lint in the water, wash em twice.
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