Best roller for General Finishes on large surfaces

[mattbyington]

Hey team,

I've been using 2" foam brushes for a long time. I use 80% general finishes arm-r-seal and 20% of the time their water based product.

Any recommendations for rollers for larger surfaces? Main consideration I would think would be lint-free so nothing gets in the finish.

Not looking to spray.

Thanks for any recommendations!

Matt

 

[Vondawg]

Matt
I use those foam wiener rollers and follow up with a good Purty feathered tip nylox brush and it smooths out the nap and lays it down pretty nice..they’re handy to push into corners on account of the size too

 

[BarneyD]

Hi Matt,
I'm no expert on finishing. But I've had really good luck with GF Arm-R-Seal simply wiped on with a rag (old tee shirts work well). I've never tried rolling it.
But I did roll on their water based product. I used a small roller (1-1/4" diameter x 4" long) with a short nap. This was not for a piece of furniture but rather just some closet shelves. So finish didn't need to be museum quality. But I was surprised by how well it worked.
Best of luck to you.
Barney

 

[mattbyington]

Thank you both! 

Matt

 

[Vondawg]

Mattbyington one other thing....I use a liner w/roll area, the small roller fits in and you can filter the material back in the can when done.

 

[mattbyington]

[member=41086]Vondawg[/member] got it. thank you!

Matt

 

[Woozal]

Do you do this all the time? If so, why not help spray?

 

[mattbyington]

[member=65957]Woozal[/member] me? I do not own a sprayer

Matt

 

[AlexThePalex]

Best rollers you can find on this planet is the Anza Elite Felt roller series. Avaialable in several sizes though the 10 cm works perfect for most things. You can roll almost any kind of paint you want with it, no fiber loss and a when you thin your paint to the proper viscosity you can paint almost is if it was sprayed.

 

[mattbyington]

[member=5277]Alex[/member] thanks that's helpful!! Where do you purchase them??

 

[AlexThePalex]

I don't know their availability in America, you'd have to google around to see if they're sold there.

There is this dutch webstore, which is close to me and I often go there myself to pick up materials, they will ship all over the world.
https://www.nonpaintstore.nl/en/anza-elite-felt-roller-10-cm.html

Unfortunately due to the covid-19 crisis there is a shortage now of these rollers.

 

[mattbyington]

[member=5277]Alex[/member] thanks for the link!

 

[Cheese]

Matt here's one that you definitely DO NOT want to use.

Purdy Jumbo Parrot
SW recommends using these for smooth finishes & Purdy claims they'll give a Mirror Finish.

They're terrible, more orange peel than an orange...and an orange is at least 2-3 times smoother than the finish produced by these.

I'm going to look for the Anza Elite Felt that Alex recommended.

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[mattbyington]

[member=44099]Cheese[/member] thanks ... I was looking for one to ship to the US. Sort of waiting for things to die down with COVID but let me know if you find a US distributer !

 

[pixelated]

Here’s a US source that came up with google;https://www.aamericanflooring.com/flooring-supplies/finish-applicators/rollers-refills

I don’t know anything else about them.

 

[Cheese]

Anza Elite Felt covers

Thanks to [member=5277]Alex[/member] for the suggestion  [big grin]

Thanks to [member=61230]pixelated[/member] for the source.  [big grin]

Thanks to American Custom Flooring...received in 2 days.

We'll see what kind of results I get.  [smile]

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[Pnw painter]

My best advice is to get a bunch of rollers and do some testing.

In general I’ve have pretty good luck with Mohair rollers for these types of applications. Another option are floor finish applicator pads. There are also some really wide floor finish brushes that might work depending on your application.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[AlexThePalex]

I've gotten a few pm's from interested people here with questions about types and sources for these rollers. It is a Swedish brand, and while they are very widely available here in the Netherlands I am surprised to hear that it's not the same in many other countries, even European countries that are close like France, Belgium and Germany. Je ne sais pas pourquoi. Ich verstehe das nicht.

There are plenty of Dutch websites where you can order them, like www.nonpaintstore.nl or www.verfwinkel.nl or www.verf365.nl and googling for "Anza Nederland" will yield plenty of results.

There is also a local paint store where I do my shopping, part of a chain of brick and mortar stores called Voordeelmarkt. They have a large supply of these Anza rollers in store. They also have a website, but their inventory on their website is deplorably small compared to what they sell in their stores.

Anza has a wide variety of rollers, but where they excel is their Elite line for fine results. They also have rollers for rough work, but that's not so special, anybody can do rough.

Here some pics from what they sell locally in my city, for those interested.

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[Hawkeye0001]

+1 on those Anza rollers. Best finish result I've ever achieved and they aren't even expensive for that matter! For once it's a pleasure to watch paint dry  [big grin]

 

[mbs]

I really like shur-line pads.  The fibers are very short and they lay down a uniform coat.  The fibers are directional so you only want to move it one direction.