Paint Roller sleeves
FDD9MPYS
I've been doing a lot of experimenting with different roller sleeves of late, different sizes, thickness and constructions. I often find that other decorators stick to the same roller sleeve for pretty much anything; usually a medium pile. The reason for this is that a medium pile allows you to get a good loading of paint with only a relatively small sacrifice in finish quality. So you usually finish the painting that bit quicker because you're doing less loading.

But I've always found that you can get a little extra finish quality by choosing the right roller sleeve, and it's not always down to cost either. From the tests I've conducted on bare plaster and previously paint walls. A woven pile fabric with a short nap gives a finish with very little orange peel, infact it can be quite hard on the eyes trying to see the peel and looks a whole lot better than say a medium nap of twist pile; more expensive. The woven fabric also tends to be a little smoother than its more expensive twist pile sibling.

Obviously the sleeve with the least impressive finish was the knitted polyester sleeves, so they're really only for ceilings where you can't tell the smoothness of finish.

CDDACRY9MP
I tend to stick with either a 9" or 12" roller; depending on the size of the areas. A short nap on new plaster, or previously painted walls and lining paper; as long as the surface is relatively smooth. If it's textured or roughened I'll opt for a medium nap to ensure that the roller gets into the textures. For rough work and especially exterior work then I use a long nap which again is for the rougher textures.

Often contract painters on new builds working on bare plaster will use a long nap to hold extra paint, this tends to allow them to put more paint on the wall before the bare plaster absorbs the water content. But the finish can be pants. I've always stuck to a good medium nap for the mist coat, which is a slightly diluted blend of contract matt. A matt paint that doesn't contain any vinyl so it lets the plaster breath.