Carpet needs to be warm to be stretched, but HOT when you put it on stairs. Well, 212 degrees hot if you did what I did. 185 wasn't hot enough. 
Customer has an open stairway. Just wood, but the wood is slippery for her stubby old dogs. She felt it was dangerous for them to go down so the wanted some sort of low profile carpet. She saw some samples of carpet tiles at the shop, and loved em. Nice things about carpet tiles is they don't unravel. It would be expensive to have 11 individual pieces sent off for binding. I did an experiment with a sample from the dealers warehouse.
I slowly heated a path from one side to the other, then folded it back on itself till it cooled. This is done with vinyl cove base to shape a 45 degree corner. Anyway, my test worked.
I picked out a sample that I thought she would like and she ordered a box of 18 24 inch square tiles. I made a scratch on the back side where I wanted to bend the tile at about 3 inches from one edge .
I slowly waved my heat gun side to side, over and over until the backing temperature rose to 210-215 degrees. I used my infrared thermometer to check the backing as the temperature rose. Took about 3 1/2 minutes.
Once hot, I put my 4' straightedge on the line I scratched on the back side of the material. I quickly folded the carpet back over on itself and repositioned the straightedge over the folded carpet and kept it there till it cooled. Wallah!, ......a pre-formed carpet tile. I used short staples in my Duofast stapler to fasten it to the steps. It turned out really nice, for what it is. Nobody is ever gonna walk on the side edges, and the front and back will never get touched.
Was kind of an odd job, but this worked out really well.
I learned sompin' new today, carpet tiles can be put on stairs.
Customer has an open stairway. Just wood, but the wood is slippery for her stubby old dogs. She felt it was dangerous for them to go down so the wanted some sort of low profile carpet. She saw some samples of carpet tiles at the shop, and loved em. Nice things about carpet tiles is they don't unravel. It would be expensive to have 11 individual pieces sent off for binding. I did an experiment with a sample from the dealers warehouse.
I slowly heated a path from one side to the other, then folded it back on itself till it cooled. This is done with vinyl cove base to shape a 45 degree corner. Anyway, my test worked.
I picked out a sample that I thought she would like and she ordered a box of 18 24 inch square tiles. I made a scratch on the back side where I wanted to bend the tile at about 3 inches from one edge .
I slowly waved my heat gun side to side, over and over until the backing temperature rose to 210-215 degrees. I used my infrared thermometer to check the backing as the temperature rose. Took about 3 1/2 minutes.
Once hot, I put my 4' straightedge on the line I scratched on the back side of the material. I quickly folded the carpet back over on itself and repositioned the straightedge over the folded carpet and kept it there till it cooled. Wallah!, ......a pre-formed carpet tile. I used short staples in my Duofast stapler to fasten it to the steps. It turned out really nice, for what it is. Nobody is ever gonna walk on the side edges, and the front and back will never get touched.
Was kind of an odd job, but this worked out really well.
I learned sompin' new today, carpet tiles can be put on stairs.
