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Workroom Procedure
Workroom practices and procedures have to do with taking "roll goods" (carpet in the various widths stocked) and getting them ready for delivery and installation. "Getting them ready" is a pretty broad term, involving sometimes the complete assembly of the carpet, including all seaming and whatever pretreating may be involved; on the other hand, a minimum of preparation may be required, with the carpet layer doing the bulk of the work at the site.
"Workroom" is also a pretty broad term. A workroom may be a large space with considerable mechanical equipment of the latest design—or it may be an out-of-the-way corner of a sales room, or a cleared space in the back of the store.
Whatever the workroom equipment or facilities—or the lack of them —the approach to the handling of any job is pretty much the same. This holds true whether the job is for a small living room or an entire house.
PRELIMINARY STEPS
Before beginning work on any material, check over the order or job ticket to make certain you have the right material and that you understand every detail of the installation and the workroom requirements.
Examine the measurements you are to work to, and verify that all the necessary figures are shown on the sketch.
Check the width of the carpet you are going to work with. This simple precaution should always be taken, whether you're just a beginning apprentice or an experienced workroom operator. A slight variation in width of carpet may change the plan for handling the cutting; for example, if 27-in. carpet is used in a room 9 ft 2 in. wide, a 2-in. fill-in strip will not be needed if the carpet runs 1/2 in. wider. The necessity for checking the width applies to all carpet, regardless of type of construction or size.
Latex Coatings. Carpets heavily coated with a latex compound may sometimes require a softening treatment to obtain satisfactory machine performance in sewing operations. For this purpose, a softening preparation may be used consisting of 1 % refined paraffin applied to the edge of the carpet. Also, the use of pre-oiled seaming yarns, which are commercially available, is recommended.
Shading Differences. Sometimes the inside portions of a roll of narrow-breadth carpet that has been tightly rolled may have shaded a trifle, because of crushing of the pile. This condition can be corrected by beginning the second roll with the inside rather than the outside end so that the degree of crushing should be approximately the same, and the two pieces will therefore blend better.
