Pro tip: An old timer told me to always backroll my glue

I had a guy with 30 years in the trade tell me to backroll glue on every seam, even the tight ones. I skipped it on a living room job in Tulsa last month and got a loose edge that took me two hours to fix. Any of you guys swear by backrolling or is it overkill?

2 comments

2 Comments

oliviahenderson1mo ago

That guy from Tulsa with the 30 years experience, Frank was his name I think, he always said backrolling saved his bacon on high humidity jobs back in the 90s when some glues were way more finicky. Maybe your issue with tight seams isn't about glue pushing out, it's about the kind of backing. I had this one job with a cheap non-woven backing that absolutely hated being backrolled, the glue just beaded up and wouldn't bite. But on a heavy commercial grade vinyl, backrolling was the only way I got it to stop curling at the edges. So maybe it's more about the material than the seam width.

jesse_craig261mo ago

Different opinion here. Backrolling is fine for wide open seams but on tight ones it just pushes glue out and makes a mess. I tried it when I first started and ended up with glue squeezing out on every joint, had to spend extra time cleaning up. Maybe that old timer had a specific glue or technique that worked for him, but in my experience a good roller set with the right pressure does the job without the extra step. Was it loose because the glue dried too fast or the edge wasn't pressed long enough?