Pro Roller 18 in. Pro Performance Woven Roller Cover, 3/8 in. Nap (With End Caps)

The Pro Performance woven roller cover is built for floor coatings, not wall paint. Shed-resistant woven Dralon fiber sits on a solvent-resistant phenolic core, so it holds together through a pour of 100% solids epoxy or solvent-based polyaspartic, where a hardware-store cover swells, goes soft and starts coming apart on the frame. At 18 inches it lays more floor per pass with fewer laps to chase, and it seats straight onto the Wooster Big Ben 18 in. roller frame.

What a 3/8 in. nap is actually for

Nap height decides how much material the cover picks up and how much texture it leaves behind. A 3/8 in. nap is the working default on a diamond-ground, smooth concrete slab. It carries enough material to even out a squeegeed film of 100% solids epoxy and to lay a polyaspartic or urethane finish coat flat, without loading so heavy that it leaves stipple you then have to chase with a second pass.

Going shorter or longer is a surface decision, not a preference:

Why woven, and not a knit cover

Most covers on a paint-aisle shelf are knit. Knit fabric is looped, so the pile is loose and fluffy. That is good for latex on drywall, where the fibers it drops are buried under the next coat and nobody sees them. It is the wrong fabric for a floor.

Why the end caps matter

This is the capped version, item PRP038SR-18EC. The Pro Performance cover is also sold bare, with caps bought separately. On an 18 in. cover the caps do real work. They close off the open ends of the core, so material cannot creep inside and set up around the cage. They also keep the ends of the cover from flaring under the weight of a fully loaded 18 in. roller, which is what puts a heavy line of epoxy down one edge of every pass. A capped cover also comes off the frame cleanly at the end of a pour instead of collapsing as you pull it.

Treat covers as a consumable

A roller cover used in 100% solids epoxy is a one-pour item. There is no solvent to wash out with, the material keeps reacting in the nap after you set the roller down, and by the time you have cleaned a cover well enough to trust it on a customer floor you have spent more in labor than the cover costs. Plan on a fresh cover per coat, and carry spares. Once mixed material starts to stiffen in the nap the cover stops laying down and starts dragging, and that is the point where it has to come off the pole, not after the next pass.

Pro Roller does not publish a square-foot rating for a cover, and we will not guess at one. How far a cover goes depends on the film thickness you are laying, how open the slab is and how long the pour runs. The practical rule on a crew is one cover per coat per roller, plus at least one spare on the truck for every cover you expect to use.

Coatings this cover is built for

Anything solvent-borne or 100% solids that goes on a floor. These are the Latux coatings it gets used with most:

• Everflow EF-100, the 100% solids epoxy base coat. Its application spec calls for a 10 mm nap, which is this cover.
• Everflow EF-150 fast cure and EF-155 super fast cure, where a cover that drags costs you the whole batch.
• Everflow EF-275 and EF-290 solvent-based polyaspartic topcoats, where a soft core is the usual failure.
• Everflow EF-301 aliphatic polyurethane finish coat, a high-gloss film where a shed fiber is visible for the life of the floor.
• EF-Masterflow metallic systems, for the prime and back-roll stages before the metallic is worked.

Frame fit

It runs on the Wooster Big Ben 18 in. roller frame, which is the frame most floor crews already carry, and on other standard 18 in. cage frames. The Big Ben threads onto a standard extension pole, so you can roll a slab from standing height instead of off your knees.

Specifications

How to back-roll with an 18 in. cover

1. Pre-wet the nap with a small amount of the mixed coating and work it in, then roll off the excess. A dry cover pulls material unevenly on the first pass.
2. Pour the batch out in a ribbon and spread it with a flat squeegee to set the film thickness. The roller evens the film, it does not meter it.
3. Back-roll in one direction across the squeegeed section, overlapping each pass by a few inches, and keep a wet edge into the next section.
4. Work in sections you can finish inside the working time of the product you are using. On EF-100 that is roughly 30 to 40 minutes at 70°F.
5. Wear spike shoes so you can walk the wet film to reach the far side of a pass.
6. Take the cover off the frame as soon as the pour is done. Material left to cure in the nap locks the cover onto the cage.

Ordering and shipping

Add covers to your coating order and they ride along with it. Free UPS Ground applies on US orders of $150 or more, which a coating kit clears on its own; a cover bought by itself does not. Free pickup is available at our Pompano Beach warehouse. Latux is an authorized dealer for every brand we carry. Running a large job or buying by the case? Message your Latux rep for contractor pricing.

Supplied for professional installers and supported by Latux.