Had a guy named Ray in Tulsa show me something similar about ten years back. He had me cut a scrap piece of carpet pad into a 6 inch square and use it as a cushion under the knee kicker head so it wouldn't bite into the backing. Stupid simple but I still do it on every stretch job.

Nine paragraphs of notes means that client knew what they wanted, you just didn't ask enough questions upfront.

Well shoot, guess my mill's slop is just a feature I didn't know about.