Paint Roller & Cleaning Aid

DIY you either love it, hate it or get roped into doing it. I am the latter - Paining like many tasks can be therapeutic or just mind numbing to some of us. Preparation takes all of your time, it seems to be an on going task, when you realise those little imperfections you missed before you painted the wall suddenly materialise before your eyes. Time to get out the filler once again.

This instructable represents my nature, I guess I believe in utility and wasting very little so I happened upon two really useful objects to help with : (1) The application of a food fork for maintaining the consistency of painting with a roller and (2) the cleaning of the roller? Using an old (PET fruit juice) bottle. So first I will cover Maintaining the consistency of the roller.

Image (1) is a new roller - it is spongy /flexible fibre like wool but is able to hold and excess of paint on its surface area.

Image (2) shows a very compacted roller, not only is it harder to hold the paint in the tray but also on the walls the roller will lose traction and slip about all over the place.

A little trick I found alleviates this for a short will. I USE A FOOD FORK - It is like brushing your hair in the wrong direct like a (Mohawk hair do) - procedure - push fork into the surface of roller a little then from end to end in one direction, fairly evenly, go up in a track - rotate a little and repeat until you have done a full rotation. If necessary repeat but in the other end to end direction - your roller should have volumised considerably, image (3) - Not only will it be easier to apply paint to the roller via the tray but it will be stable on the surface of the walls while maintaining a good texture...

Cleaning tools can be very messy and just plane awkward at the best of times but If you are a good methodical DIY enthusiast, you clean your tools regardless.....

Take a juice bottle image (1) - something rigid like PET I used an Innocent Juice bottle. Then taking a clean roller head work out the diameter necessary to allow the roller to be tight but still pass through the mouth. Image (2)
Cut using a BREAD KNIFE and proceed with a sawing action. Image (3-5) - now try the roller if it passes too easily, it will not work.
Alternatively use a piece of string to work out the roller diameter and transpose this to the bottle if you find this easier. The bottle should appear like in image (4)

Now cut bottle the bottom of the bottle of - this is to turn it into a sleeve, which will allow roller to be drawn through. Image (6)

Having drawn the new dry one through, using a gentle twisting motion - you can now try a used roller after it feels compacted and needing more paint (dryish roller). Image (3)

Now using gloves or bare hand like I did pull off roller from handle and insert into Bottle Sleave through the bottle (large aperture) and twist and slight wiggle if it's stubborn, then turn normal way up and pull the rest of squeezed roller through.......image 2-3 you will be amaized how much paint that dryish roller holds - I would guess after 3 attempts I got about 100mls or more of paint out. Image (4)