Tool Review of the Paintstick and Fastrim Rollers from Homgar

This product review of the Paintstick and FasTrim rollers from Homgar establishes the fact that these two products, used together or singly, can make decorating an entire room a pleasure.

The review and videos show that cutting into skirting boards, architraves, ceilings and tight corners with the FasTrim roller is exactly as the company claim – Easy, with no mess and at any angle – We then followed the cutting in with the Paintstick and covered an entire wall in less than 5-minutes.

All the paint stayed on the wall, there were no splashes. All in all, two excellent products which, as the review will show, most certainly do what it says on the tin.

On site test of Paintstick and FasTrim

As you can see in the video, we took a standard room and painted it! The difference was that, for this job, we were told we did not have to worry about masking off skirting boards, doors window frames and architraves.

We were also told to leave our paint brushes and roller tray in the workshop as they would be unnecessary. As you can imagine, we approached the walls a little tentatively!

5 minutes later we were stunned! We have seen hundreds of "corporate" videos where paint appears magically on the wall and the guy or girl doing the job does not have a paint mark on them – we are not fooled, and cannot imagine you would be either – so it was up to us to make this test as real as it could possibly be – and we did.

The room being painted was part of an old office DIY Doctor were vacating as we had moved on to new premises. The offices were big, the deposit had been huge, we wanted it back! For that to happen we had to leave the building the way we found it so it was a great test for Paintstick and FasTrim.

They both passed with flying colours.

How the FasTrim Paint Roller Works

Usually cutting in involves a paint brush. No matter how good you are at decorating, paint mysteriously appears on surfaces you had no intention of painting. Not any more!

Without using any masking tape, FasTrim’s amazing new roller edge allows you to butt right up to the skirting boards, frames, architraves etc…. without getting a drop of paint on them.

The principle is so easy there must be a million decorators who are asking themselves why they didn’t think of it! A simple plastic washer stops the roller bristles touching any surface you do not want them to touch.

However good that particular feature is, when its added to the fact that FasTrim can be adjusted to any angle in order to cut in the most awkward places in the room without standing on your head or straining your back, the effect is stunning.

How Paintstick Works

Instead of tipping the paint into a roller tray (invitation to disaster number 1) and swishing it about with the ed of the roller in order to make sure the roller is full, but not too full (invitation to disaster number 2), all we needed to do was whip the lid off the paint tin, attach Paintstick’s fill tube to the side of the can after cutting the fill tube to the depth of the can, suck the paint into the handle by pulling it up (much like a bicycle pump) and we were ready to go.

A few runs up wall saw the roller begin to fill with paint as the operator pushes gently on the handle to release the paint. From that point on it is the speed that makes the Paintstick a pleasure to use.

A roller guard stops paint splashing everywhere (not that the great quality roller seemed to want to splash anyone!) and as a bonus the guard means that you can lay the roller down while you have a cup of tea without making a mess. Follow the process in the video and you will find this tool as useful as we did.

Benefits of Using the FasTrim roller and Paintstick

Clearly both of these products offer huge benefits to both the home improver and the trade. Faster, more evenly coated walls with Paintstick means a great job first time with a massive saving on time which, if you are in the trade, equals money. Similarly, FasTrim allows you to cut in without wasting hours putting masking tape everywhere, a saving on both time and materials.

Both products give the kind of neat, professional finish which we would normally associate with tools 5 times the cost of these two.

There is no wastage of paint left in the tray and the only down side to the day was the hassle of cleaning the Paintstick…….Until we realised that a hosepipe can easily be attached to the handle making that job as simple as painting the wall itself.

What we Thought of the FasTrim roller and Paintstick

Great, really great…..We are so happy Homgar let us keep both the Paintstick and the FasTrim cutting in roller. We couldn’t go so far as to say our lives are now complete but we certainly got our deposit back after painting in record time with no clearing up afterwards! Two great products from Homgar.