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Tried power stretch on a curved staircase vs. hand knee method... what a joke
I had a job last month in a 1920s house in Portland with a real tight curved staircase. Spent 2 hours trying to get my power stretcher to work around that bend, kept popping the tack strip. Finally gave up and went old school with knee kicker and hand stretching. Finished the whole flight in under 45 minutes with zero wrinkles. The power tool just doesn't flex right on those irregular radius turns. Anyone else find that knee work beats power on older homes with weird curves?
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brooket432mo ago
Did you have to re-pull the backing pad off that curved section when you switched methods?
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jordan_henderson132mo ago
That one curved section by the window took me three tries before I finally got it right. I used to think you could just stretch the backing pad over curves the same way as flat runs, but @blair70 showed me how it really needs to come up and get reset with the knee kicker. When I finally pulled it back and did a fresh kick on that corner, the whole thing laid down way smoother with no lumps. Idk why I was so stubborn about it before, but yeah, that method makes a huge difference on tight spots.
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