I've tried the hair straightener thing too and used way too much bud for very little return. I even bought a tee-shirt press and that didn't work out either so I gotta get me a press and just stop thinking about it.
I'm in the East Bay Area and I put these two out on April 2nd as a re-veg experiment and they are flowering but I'll bet they start to re-veg soon. We'll soon see