I’d like a nice, smooth finish when I paint. With semigloss paint using a quality standard roller does an acceptable job but roller texture still shows. I saw foam rollers in the store today and was wondering if they were any better. What is your experience with them?
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I used foam rollers extensively when I built my boat rolling on epoxy. Immediately after rolling there would be very small bubbles which would level out during the course of the epoxy curing. The resulting finish was very smooth.
butch
Hey Butch, what kinda boat did you build?
What kind of paint is it-Latex or oil based? If it's latex, slow down. The bubbles are easy to get if the roller is moved too fast. Oil based can be thinned with Naptha and should skin over faster. When the underlying paint dries, it shrinks and the surface flattens out. With Latex, try Floe-trol or something like that.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
20' cold molded using 1/8" thick western red cedar veneer strips and West System epoxy. The bottom had 6 layers and the sides 5. The sides were clear finished showing the wood grain and the bottom painted with bottom paint. Powered with a 140 hp volvo stern drive. Top speed was 36 mph (timed between channel bouys).
butch
I've painted doors and cabinets with the foam rollers (the smaller ones, about 6" long). They produce a nice, smooth surface, much more even than one can get with a brush. (Never compared them to a standard roller.) However, whether or not texture will show still depends to a fairly large degree on the paint.
Of course, another way to get a smooth finish on some surfaces is to "back brush" after rolling. Depends on the surface and the paint.
I bought a bunch after watching a demonstration last winter, thinking the same thoughts as you, but in practice, I had a difficult time preventing lines of paint made by paint-heavy ends of the rollers. I get them even with regular rollers, but they seemed more pronounced (and obstinate) with the foam. I quit using them, probably before I learned the right technique. Don't load them up and apply as much pressure, I suppose.
Some of the shortie rollers have one end that's round (hemisphere). This allows them to produce less of a roller line on that end.
Thanks for the tip. I have some of those short rollers, but I haven't seen any standard size roller with that feature, but I'll look. The foam rollers did give a much smoother surface, but I had to work much harder/larger to get decent results. Again, too much pressure, I think.
I never met a tool I didn't like!
Foam does leave nice smooth finish. Recently did some cabinet doors and found two things. Lap lines are minimized if the roller ends are rounded, worth finding this type. Secondly, they don't hold as much paint as fabric rollers, so more trips to roller tray. I ended up kinda slop rolling paint to get it on surface and them back roll to get desired finish.
PJ
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