Seaming Crappy Carpet?

My worst seams lately have been with a particular cheap brown-backing shaw carpet. Short, low-density curly knap and the backing is junk. Besides the rows being almost unusable for row-cutting (incredibly jumpy and curvy) the cross seams fall apart when I cut them with a fresh blade and straight edge. My last two homes with it have bad cross seams in the bedroom doorways. It's mostly just that the yarns start to fall off before I can even really get sealer on. Sealer only made more fall off. I re-trimmed (with a straight edge) both times and it was better on half the seams, but still not good. Any advice for this? I use a Roberts hot iron, been using latex sealer, and Orcon XU-90 seam tape. the low-temp glue helps the edge to stay together during seaming, but is there anything else besides saying that's it's junk carpet? I'm also not sure just how much I should be expected to fight with a lowsy product for regular rates.

Often times it’s cheap **** that pays the bills. You just gotta learn to work with it. It gets better once you figure out a few things.

For cross seams I would flip the carpet over and cut it from the back. Square corner Mary’s and just score the backing. Maybe make 2 or 3 passes scoring the backing until you have almost broken through the backing without breaking though. What you’re trying to do is to avoid cutting any carpet nap while cutting the backing. If it’s easier you might try seam sealing the backing of the carpet ahead of cutting the seams. Let the sealer seal up and strengthen the backing where you’ll be cutting.

For side seams I was usually able to row cut the seams. Sometimes I had to use the blade on the far side of the row cutter when making my cuts. The carpet is so cheesy that you have to leave more backing on the seam edges so when your two trimmed pieces meet you have about the same space between the rows of nap as the rest of the carpet.

Switching to a flat roller helped as well. It disturbed the nap less and let me see what my seams looked like right there and then as I’m making them. Never did go back to using a star roller after that.

XK-50 was my seam tape of choice most of the time but K-40 or something lesser was a goto for cheap carpet. I used to have trouble with the ends of my seams sticking until I quit wiping off my iron in between seams as well as changing how I started and stopped my seams.

Keep trying new things, you’ll get it.

A flat roller may help. Been wanting to try one. The two doorways are at the end of a 4 food wide hallway and opposite each other. there's not much room to fold back the carpet. I've been marking the bedroom side to the closing edge of the door and folding half the room back or a good trim with a straight edge. For the hall side, after stretching the hall, scribing with my knife in 4 spots to match the bedroom, folding back the title that I can, and straight edging across my scribe marks. I really should have just redone the seams. The hot glue residue would have held it together for a cleaner trimming. Come to think of it, we had a similar carpet falling apart like this a while back. We used latex sealer about 1 inch wide and waited 45 minutes before trimming to hold the backing together.
It just bugs me when I need to put in the extra time and effort to seam crap like that compared to a more technical carpet that actually pays extra for it. We had one cheap carpet 10 or 12 years ago that had random voids in the weave and they showed when seaming. Our head salesman called it in and the Shaw rep said it's normal and installers should sew or glue in tufts on the seam edges. Luckily, we stopped carrying that one.

Welcome Jordy, never saw a Buck that color before NICE !

That’s really frustrating when the face fibers are not securely attached to the foundation …..Have any pics of the face and backing ? I’ll try to do some research on it.

Jordy Buck said:

I'm also not sure just how much I should be expected to fight with a lowsy product for regular rates.

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Keep Fighting / Focusing on seaming solutions, that’s the primary issue at hand. The lousy product, regular rate issue is a valid one, but secondary ! ! and sometimes better off left out, until it becomes clearly the primary concern.

Try using thermo for sealing, the latex maybe building up on the side of your iron dragging the yarn off as you make the seam. Definitely don't use a star roller with heat, you can use it after it is cooled if you want to blend things.

Cheap carpet was the hardest for me to learn to make good seams in but boy does it stretch nice. I’m not gonna say I’ve never glued tufts of yarn back down but it was almost never on a seam. Punched loop of Berber on a stinger mark maybe, but not a seam.

MSLI said:

Welcome Jordy, never saw a Buck that color before NICE !

That’s really frustrating when the face fibers are not securely attached to the foundation …..Have any pics of the face and backing ? I’ll try to do some research on it.


Keep Fighting / Focusing on seaming solutions, that’s the primary issue at hand. The lousy product, regular rate issue is a valid one, but secondary ! ! and sometimes better off left out, until it becomes clearly the primary concern.

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It's a black bear, not a deer. And no, I don't have any pictures of the backing.

Jordy Buck said:

It's a black bear, not a deer. And no, I don't have any pictures of the backing.

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I saw antlers on his head …. I can be quite clueless sometimes.

Jordy Buck said:

It just bugs me when I need to put in the extra time and effort to seam crap like that compared to a more technical carpet that actually pays extra for it. We had one cheap carpet 10 or 12 years ago that had random voids in the weave and they showed when seaming. Our head salesman called it in and the Shaw rep said it's normal and installers should sew or glue in tufts on the seam edges. Luckily, we stopped carrying that one.

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Yep ! This trade is full of bugs. Roll damage bugs, warehouse dirt and grease bugs, defect lines, and poor quality products that need stabilizing before we can safely cut, seal and seam ….. Again ! Focus on what you can control, rather than what you can’t. Put in the extra time ( as best as you can at that time) to give that installation, not what they deserve, but what you deserve as a craftsman. Quality over compensation ( to a point ) will usually yield future benefits not yet realized, from the skills you learn.
Now sewing in loops and yarns along a seam edge as per the sales rep. IMHO is probably going to FAR.

Check out the topic in the Carpet Forum category called ‘ Stabilizing Carpet Backing ‘ maybe this could help on the cross seams and maybe give the swirly shot cutting length seam a try, but you will need to use a Seamer Down Now
to keep it together as you proceed.

Good luck and keep us informed, as we all learn together.

MSLI said:

I saw antlers on his head …. I can be quite clueless sometimes.

Yep ! This trade is full of bugs. Roll damage bugs, warehouse dirt and grease bugs, defect lines, and poor quality products that need stabilizing before we can safely cut, seal and seam ….. Again ! Focus on what you can control, rather than what you can’t. Put in the extra time ( as best as you can at that time) to give that installation, not what they deserve, but what you deserve as a craftsman. Quality over compensation ( to a point ) will usually yield future benefits not yet realized, from the skills you learn.
Now sewing in loops and yarns along a seam edge as per the sales rep. IMHO is probably going to FAR.

Check out the topic in the Carpet Forum category called ‘ Stabilizing Carpet Backing ‘ maybe this could help on the cross seams and maybe give the swirly shot cutting length seam a try, but you will need to use a Seamer Down Now
to keep it together as you proceed.

Good luck and keep us informed, as we all learn together.

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Afer looking through, I'm going to use a glue gun to stabilize those poor edges before trimming. Should only take 5 minutes for a doorway. I can do that.

Jordy Buck said:

Afer looking through, I'm going to use a glue gun to stabilize those poor edges before trimming. Should only take 5 minutes for a doorway. I can do that.

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Yes, put a light pencil mark where the cut will be, and put a drizzle... a line or two of adhesive on that pencil line, then another an 8th of an inch behind the first one......smoothing it flat with your seaming iron, held perpendicular as you move along to smooth it
Keep in mind, that doing this is filling the backing voids with adhesive, so this gives more of a chance of squeeze out, or glue coming up in the seam edges as you press the seam edges together, so as CJ mentioned, a lighter tape would be good if you're using XK-50.

As a side note, I've used thermo sealing literally since the days when flip phones came out. When thermo sealing, as you move the tip along the edge, you'll have a loose primary backing fiber protruding out as you move along. Hold the glue top on that fiber for 1/2 a second and it melts or shrivels into non-existence. I never have to trim any of those fibers after making a seam..... I mean, never. I don't even look for them.
If you haven't tried thermo sealing, it's worth the time to try it out. You don't put a bead on the edge, just a thin film. Less is better. There's no drying time. It reduces seam peaking because the two seam edges become glued together so it doesn't act like a hinge.
Thermo sealing doesn't always work to secure end cuts (butt seams) on Berber and loop piles, because when seaming, the iron reactivates the adhesive. When that happens, and you work the seam into the hot tape, the loops can become loose again. Ya don't want that.