House paint is applied by three methods of application: roller, brush or spray.
I want to look at the paint roller in this column. Rollers are easy to use, they are very productive in applying paint, quickly and uniformly. There are a lot of varieties of rollers, used for different situations, as well as a number of accessories used in conjunction with the roller. The following is a general overview of the paint roller.
Sizes
A standard roller frame is 9” long, but there are other common roller sizes 4” and 7” as well as the less popular high production 18” size. This is used for most interior rolling of walls and ceilings. You will find the largest selection of roller covers for this size roller frame.
- The 4” roller is used for rolling exterior trim. You can put a 3’4 cover on it and roll out rough sawn exterior trim with ease. Fitted with a fine nap or sponge roller, you can enamel a door or trim with the 4” roller.
- The 7” roller fits into a 10 quart (2 ½ gallon) bucket, equipped with a 2 gallon bucket grid, and you have a “miniature” roller and bucket set up that is easy to use off of a ladder or roof for exterior painting.
- The 9” is by far the most commonly used roller size. Good for interior rolling, it fits into a 5 gallon bucket and used in conjunction with the 5 gallon roller grid comprises a roller setup for painting.
- The 18” roller is for production painting of large areas of all one color paint. Used for apartment painting and commercial painting primarily.
Pressure rollers are used when you have a lot of one color of paint to apply to either interior or exterior surfaces. Because of the time require to clean up the equipment, power rolling is not useful for painting where there are several color changes. Pressure rollers come as either an attachment for an airless sprayer, or as a separate low pressure rolling unit. See Pressure Rollers
A wider version of the standard 9” roller known as a “jumbo” roller, is made for high production rolling. The wider circumference roller will hold more paint and therefore require less dipping and hopefully better production. These frames are hard to find and even harder to find are roller covers made for this size frame. Purdy makes their very good Colossus roller cover for these frames, but finding a paint store that stocks the roller frame is difficult to find.
The dual roller is used for faux finish painting. The side by side roller holds 4” roller covers for the purpose of “meshing” two paint colors together -wet on wet. Rolling with this roller in semi circular arcs will blend the paint in a random mottled fashion. The looks will vary depending on the two colors used. A special dual paint tray is used to load this roller. Wagner is a manufacturer of this roller system, along with a variety of special roller covers for the roller to create different effects. See Wagner Wallmagic Roller
Some common problems with rollers
Some of the more common problems with rolling and the rollers themselves are “graying”, twisting off , and cover slipping. All of these problems have been addressed by the Sherlock roller system . The tab lock prevents the roller from twisting, and locking system prevents the roller cover from slipping off while in use. Finally, a better bearing system prevents aluminum parts from grinding with the paint and oozing out gray paint from the end of the roller. See Wooster Sherlock System.
Accessories
Angle adjustable rollers are available to allow for horizontal rolling (as you would roll the face of an exterior soffit - for example). While these rollers are handy, you can get adjustable angle adapters that will enable any roller to roll on an angle.
Roller grids are inserted into a bucket to allow for dipping and rolling off the excess paint before bringing the roller to the wall for painting. Roller grids come in 1, 2, and 5 gallon size grids, and will accommodate 4”,7” and 9” rollers respectively.
Roller washers are attached to the sink or laundry tub faucet and used to quickly wash out roller covers at the end of the day. Once washed a spinner is used to spin dry the cover for next use.
Specialty rollers
The mini rollers have taken the world by storm. They are very handy in that they allow a painter to work from a standard one gallon paint bucket to not only brush - but roll. The mini roller (4” size) will fit into a standard paint bucket , when fitted with a one gallon roller grid, you can hang it with a hook to the ladder, you can paint with a roller from an extension ladder for exterior painting. See Mini Paint Rollers
Wooster Sherlock, Purdy, and more....
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