Painting - Roller skips..Paint "Holidays"

I have noticed paint skips when using a roller at times. I have used cheap rollers, expensive rollers, cheap and expensive paints and still get these skips that really show after the paint dries.

I have heard some people call them "Holidays" for obvious reasons.

How can this be prevented? Push harder, softer, straighter, roller type, what is the best way to get a nice clean roll without the skips? Or maybe it can't be prevented!

Thanks in advance for the help.

A few suggustions:

Roll the paint on, then re-roll it. Double rolling over the surface as such will minimize skips and misses.

Use a longer nap roller cover. Short nap covers are prone to holidays if you are not careful.

Press a little harder on the first rolling of the paint onto the wall. Then on the repeat roll, use lighter pressure. Harder pressure will help to elimiinate skips, lighter pressure will remove roller tracks.

The main thing is to keep the roller cover loaded with paint. Keeping the roller loaded also makes rolling easier - the paint acts like a lubricant.

Often [depending on both paint and substrate] I'll load the roller, slop the paint on and then smooth it out as the roller cover runs out of paint.

Dig,

"Holidays" are caused by only 2 things...
1) Not letting roller get saturated, &
2) Pushing paint too thin/technique.

At our store, I always tell clients to use the best rollers, like a Purdy White-Dove, or Wooster Pro-Dooz.

Point #1)
* For 95% of walls, a 3/8" nap is just fine.
* Higher-end rollers are densely woven. It takes TIME for heavy-bodied modern latexes to "wick" all the way through the roller-fabric.
* For the INITIAL roller-load, I coach customers to to fully roll into the paint.
* Then...here's the KEY: Let the roller SIT for 2 minutes. Paint is now pulling itself into the fabric.
* Now..repeat this step.

>>> Now, you've got a fully-saturated sleeve, that will "release" paint easier.

Point #2)
* With a properly saturated sleeve, you should be able to walk around the room and not drip any paint.
* To avoid pushing paint too thin, I advise people to apply their paint in a vertical column.
* On an 8' wall, FOUR roller-loads in a 2.5' wide column are appropriate. Each portion is ~ 2'x2.5'. DON'T push paint thinner than this!!!
* Now, when you've filled in your 4th section (the lowest), bring roller to the top, and LIGHTLY/EVENLY roll from ceiling-to-floor. This is called "Laying-off" the paint, so all stipple is facing the same direction.
* Continue around the room...building columns and sweeping them:cool:.
* By doing these light vertical "sweeps", you're eliminating the cross-mowed "baseball-field" effect and thin-spots. You can't see them when applying, because they're wet:rolleyes:!
>>> Apply two full coats like this, and people will be hiring you to paint Beer 4U2 !!

I've done deep colors like this, and they look PERFECT.
No holidays...no thin areas...no "cross-hatch" effect.

(Of course using quality paint helps too!)

The main problem for "occasional" painters is pushing paint too thin.

Faron

Couple more tips: Although it is popular to use 9" or even larger width rollers, a 7" roller does the best job, many times misses are caused by rollers bridging over hollows in the plaster or drywall job...And two, assuming you are working right to left, apply the paint as recommended and then lay off with the open end of the rollor to your right, so you are working away from your finished area, this will avoid "railroad tracks", a common problem when the arm part of the roller is trailing to the right....