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I am not a professional painter; I do some jobs for my house. Now I have these 2 projects:-

  1. I want to paint a room which already has been painted >> for this project I am going to use an water-based vinyl white paint. the original paint is also white.

  2. I have a white Formica cabinet >> which i want to painted using a brown oil-based paint.

now i have settled on the paint type as described above>> and for the 2 projects i am going to use a paint roller for almost 90% of the surfaces and a paint brush for the corners and smaller areas.

now i got those 2 types of roller :-

  1. for the wall I am going to use this paint roller from Total which have a long hair:-

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  1. while for the Formica cabinet i am going to use this acrylic roller which has a shorter hair:-

enter image description here

so are my choices for the rollers accurate? or i should get different types of rollers?

Thanks

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    Be aware that your Formica cabinet (whether it's actually Formica™ brand, or a similar hard, shiny, smooth material) will not hold paint well. Prep work will be critical to getting a good finish and getting it to stick. You'll need to scuff up the surface with something like steel wool or fine grit sand paper (220 grit or so) to give the surface "tooth" so the paint can hold on to it. You're not looking to remove the surface layer, just break up the smoothness of it. Otherwise, if the surface is smooth and shiny when you paint it, the paint will end up flaking off very soon.
    – FreeMan
    Commented Sep 2, 2021 at 13:47
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    There are also bonding primers I'd trust for that. It is important, though.
    – isherwood
    Commented Sep 2, 2021 at 13:48
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    @FreeMan yes i am going to give it a sanding of 220 grit .. and the formica in my case it not glossy it is some how matt ..
    – test test
    Commented Sep 2, 2021 at 14:00
  • @isherwood should i ask for plastic primer paint for example?
    – test test
    Commented Sep 2, 2021 at 14:00
  • I've had success doing just what @FreeMan says, with a drill-mounted sanding disc. A dedicated sander would be better but at the time I lacked the money and space for more power tools. Hand sanding would work, if you've got the patience to do the whole surface adequately and reasonably evenly
    – Chris H
    Commented Sep 3, 2021 at 9:17

2 Answers 2

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If you're set on using rollers, the one for the cabinet, short hair one, will be fine. Have you considered spraying?

I would use a short hair one for the walls too unless you have heavy texturing. Long hair rollers suck up a lot of paint and when applying it to the wall, it creates suction which can pull existing old paint off the wall if you keep going over it.

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  • thanks a lot for your reply.. i know spraying give best result.. but the wall is an indoor + the cabinet is huge 5 X 4 meters long..so i can not move it out.. so are acrylic rollers fine for both oil based and water based paints?
    – test test
    Commented Sep 2, 2021 at 13:39
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    @testtest you can spray indoors, it just takes more equipment (buying a sprayer setup is more expensive than buying a couple of roller handles & rollers) and prep work to isolate the area to be painted (preventing over spray from drifting through the house or getting on things-not-to-be-painted).
    – FreeMan
    Commented Sep 2, 2021 at 14:05
  • And to expand on work to isolate the area to be painted, this is extremely important. Any paint area that is not tightly air sealed will leak, and more than you expect. The paint droplets that is not hitting the target will dry up and turn into (just) paint dust, however this very fine paint dust will cover everything. old.reddit.com/r/paint/comments/jp8y8d/… old.reddit.com/r/HomeImprovement/comments/4yl42w/… old.reddit.com/r/paint/comments/c3kcvu/…
    – hlovdal
    Commented Sep 3, 2021 at 8:00
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There's no hair on a paint roller. It's called nap, and it's described by depth. 1/4" nap is commonly used for smooth walls. 3/8" or 1/2" nap is for more heavily textured surfaces. In your case, the nap is 4mm (about 3/16").

You want a very short nap for smooth surfaces. 4mm nap may still be too much unless you want some stipple.

Consider a foam roller or brush. Both take careful technique to prevent lines and other marks. That's the nature of smooth surface painting. I would practice somewhere else first.

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  • thanks for the reply.. so by smooth surface you mean the Formica or the Wall as well? so it is better to use brush? for the wall i do not want to use a brush as it will take long time to do.. so is my roller for wall good choice? thanks
    – test test
    Commented Sep 2, 2021 at 14:03
  • also are foam roller good for wall? i have never seen any video where a foam roller us used for walls... not sure if i am getting things correctly.. thanks
    – test test
    Commented Sep 2, 2021 at 14:06
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    @testtest Walls normally have some texture to them so a short-nap roller is used rather than foam. Something in the 8mm-10mm range should be fine (3/8" nap roller in the US, not sure how rollers are sold in other places).
    – JPhi1618
    Commented Sep 2, 2021 at 21:32
  • @JPhi1618 and what about the oil based on formica surface? is it better to use foam roller?
    – test test
    Commented Sep 2, 2021 at 23:56
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    The type/thickness of the roller is a function of the surface more than the material. So, on a very smooth surface like the formica, you would use a foam roller. That will work fine for acrylic or oil based paints.
    – JPhi1618
    Commented Sep 3, 2021 at 2:04

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