PSA: That $40 seam roller from Amazon is gonna mess up your seams

Bought one of those cheap aluminum seam rollers with the plastic handle and it started shedding metal shavings into the carpet backing on my third job. Has anyone else run into junk tools ruining a install?

3 comments

3 Comments

robin59126d ago

Did you get the wrong kind of seam roller? Those cheap ones with the plastic handles are usually meant for wallpaper, not carpet. They don't have a smooth enough roller surface and can damage the backing pretty bad. I've seen guys use them on vinyl flooring too, and they leave marks. For carpet seams you need a proper metal roller with a good bearing so it rolls smooth and doesn't scrape anything up.

oscarc1226d ago

You ever grab a tool thinking it'll do the job and it just laughs at you? I borrowed my buddy's "seam roller" once that turned out to be his wife's old pastry dough crimper. Let me tell you, that thing left tracks on my carpet like a monster truck at a mud bog. Robin is right though - those plastic handled ones are garbage for anything but maybe sticking down a poster in your garage. I had to redo a whole hallway because I thought I was being smart with one of those cheapies. Lesson learned: stick with the metal roller or you'll be picking up your seam tape with tweezers for a week.

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paige33125d ago

Read somewhere that those plastic seam rollers have a 80% failure rate within six months on carpet jobs. That pastry crimper story is gold though, bet it taught your buddy to label his tools better.