For many years the 464 Twin Bulb Heater has been the mainstay of shoe repair shops across the Country as an essential part of their workshop.  Obviously it’s most popular function was to warm up the repairer’s bacon sarnies on a cold morning or keep your tea warm!  Additionally, back in the day, the 464 twin bulb was the only source of heat available to warm your hands!  Another useful task the device performed, when not helping to feed the faces and warm the cockles of cobblers, was warming up stick-on-soles that have been pre-solutioned or drying leather soles covered in copious amounts of glue.

A consequence of the multi-faceted uses for the twin bulb heat lamp was that these appliances are left permanently ‘on’ and using up your hard earned cash! Most often because you ‘forget’ to turn them off or that the switch has broken, not uncommon for this kind of machine.  Whilst there’s seemingly not much else required from your heater, we would like you to consider the differences between the old and the NEW options available to the Trade. 

The main difference, some would argue, is the cost! Flash activators are more expensive to buy, but are they more expensive when you balance the issue and consider running costs?  The older style heaters, of which the 464 is one, have one very basic operation, ‘On and Off’.  Now there’s nothing wrong with that, it did the job and that’s what every repairer wanted.

But the NEW Cement Activators offer a little more for the end user that we believe can make a difference to your working day. Activator’s are designed to give the operator more choice in how they work, mainly by offering a timed ‘Boost’ option to speed up the drying/activating process, invaluable when running a busy repair outlet.  But more than that, they can be more easily integrated within your machine set up and there are two options for you to choose from.  The mainstay of our range is the ‘Mini Hica.’ Hica, for the uninitiated, is an acronym for High Intensity Cement Activator.  You see, you do get to learn something new every day!

The Mini Hica is used in most of the busiest shoe repair shops in the Country and beyond.  A solid, well-built item that puts more control in the hands of the operator. It uses a timer on the ‘Boost’ section which allows more control over how you use the heat generated.  It also includes a new addition,  a timer on the ‘on/off’ button, set at 10 minutes, to make sure that your device is not left on any longer than need be, keeping your electric bills to a minimum!

In addition, we offer another model, the 465A, a slimmer, wider design that better integrates with the contemporary layout of shoe repair outlets.  This model also includes the same spec as above but is more suited to our modular machine set ups. It is wider to allow for long soles and is higher to allow for bulkier materials/footwear to be placed under the heater tubes.  Along with the timers on both ‘on/off’ and ‘boost’ buttons, we believe, your NEW activator will more than pay for itself by saving you money on your electricity bills and keeping your workshop a little neater. In fact, we’ll go one further, we reckon that they will pay for themselves in the first two years of their life!  

So, to recap, the NEW activators are:

• More energy efficient
• More adaptable
• Ergonomically designed in line with our modular design ethos
• Colour matched if required

Now ask yourself again, are NEW activators really more expensive?