Maintenance Tips & Tricks – 2000 – #4

By Plant Engineering Staff August 1, 2000
Reusing rollers
Problem: Cleaning and squeezing that last drop of paint from a roller so it can be reused is hard to do. Is there a way to remove it all?

Solution: After an initial, thorough cleaning, submerge the roller in a container of water. After sitting overnight, all the paint pigments settle out of the roller’s nap.

Remove the roller from the container gently without disturbing the water. (For superior cleaning, a second soak may be required.) Cleaning the roller this way assures that no paint remains and settles out when then roller is propped up to dry.

Even the thickest and darkest latex paints can be removed from plastic core rollers by this method. However, it is not appropriate with paperboard core rollers or with oil-based paints.

Contributor: JoLynda Myers, Project Engineer, J-M Farms, Inc., Miami, OK; 918-540-1567; jolyndam@ jmfarms.com

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Plant Engineering