fifi’s grafitti

I’ve been doing a lot of interior painting the last few months. Two rooms may not sound like a lot, but when you have raw drywall on ten-foot-high walls and on the ceiling, and unprimed doors and moldings it takes a lot more work than just slapping some white paint over an existing coat of white paint. You have to caulk the places where two different materials meet, and you have to lay on a lot of primer so your surface will be even and allow good adhesion for your top coat of paint. I’ve been doing the best I can to do the job right, and I’m always looking at tools that can make my work easier and more efficient.

When I saw the air glide roller frame by Zibra I thought I’d give it a try. The blurb on the packaging said, “Zibra products are designed by teams of women around the country - known as Designing Women groups.” Sounded like the ideal tool for me. The roller frame is made of lightweight aluminum to make it lighter, and is supposedly center balanced to help reduce fatigue and increase control. There is a lever on the handle which engages and releases the paint roller quite easily so you can just eject the used roller into the trash without making a mess.

Turns out the roller ejects just a bit TOO easily. I regret to say I ejected the roller frame itself into the trash after just one use. I have several problems with this tool, the chief one being the lever that ejects the roller. If you look at the photo of the roller frame on the web site, you can clearly see the lever adjacent to the thumb of the hand that holds the handle. If you accidentally touch that lever with your thumb, the paint roller ejects right off the wall and onto the floor. After the first time, I tried to pay close attention to the position of my hand on the roller, but I was more focused on getting the paint evenly distributed on the wall, so it wasn’t long before I hit the lever again, and the roller, saturated in paint, ended up on the floor again. This problem could be alleviated by reversing the “closed” and “open” position of the switch or affixing a ridge to prevent the thumb from hitting the lever.

There is another problem with this roller frame; the size of the paint roller. My local DIY stores carry a variety of standard 9″ rollers by at least 3 different manufacturers for different surfaces and paint types, but no 6″ rollers, which is the size this frame uses. I was stuck with using the Zibra-brand roller, which did a poor job of distributing the paint on the wall. It also took many more back-and-forth arm movements to cover the wall with the smaller size roller. I didn’t find the handle to be better than that of my old roller frame, which has a depression in it that better fits my hand. I spent about $9 on this roller frame, plus a few more bucks on the rollers. This was kind of an impulse purchase. I had just intended to purchase some roller covers, but I was tired from painting all morning and this seemed like a great innovation. Next time I’ll search for reviews before buying the next new thing.

My recommendation is to stick with the traditional 9″ roller frame. Be sure to get one that is sturdy and has sealed bearings, and then take care of it. It’ll give you good service for quite a while, and you’ll have your pick of roller covers. Messiness just goes with painting; live with it.