Dear :Hyla: Nice informative post, thank you. I didn't know where to look for etymology of Procrustes' name.
But flesh not being malleable, a tensioning device would be needed. There is a primitive way called a "Spanish windlass", an English mockery of Spanish seamanship, that involved tying a loop around two fixed points, and the passing a bar between them and twisting the ropes to tighten them.
You also reminded me of the legend of Pythagorus' getting rich by achieving a corner on olive oil presses. But Procrustes belonged to the much earlier age of mythology.