rommer25

When I was young, They used to sell a patch kit that came with a vice like unit. The patches were part of a small square metal box. You would put the tube and metal box in the vice like object and close it with the patch next to the tube (where the hole was). Then you would light the other side of the box with a match. They were great patches. I cannot remember what they were called. Wish they still sold them.

NVanHiker

Never used them but I do remember them. True vulcanization - no wonder they worked so well.

irwin7638

Holy Crap, I thought I went back there aways! It sounds like an early vulcanizing method, but I've never seen or heard of it before now.

Marc

jon c. 

Don't recall that specific device, but we always lit our patches briefly. I don't know if it actually made them more secure, but that was the common belief.

DnvrFox

Sure - I watched my dad fix many a hole in an automobile tube (that was before tureless auto tires) - and a few times on bicycle tires - with that cast iron black screw-down device. I may have done a couple myself - too long ago - like 70 years - to remember.

Whiteknight

I am 72. You bet I remember those. Also used them when car tires still used tubes.

jppe

I remember them well. They worked really well, too.

10 Wheels

I used them when I was 10 y/o

h2oxtc

What do you mean remember? I still do that from time to time. My dad taught me to take a lighter to get rid of the excess adhesive, and I suppose at the same time it would heat up the rubber. Never had one of those patches fail. New stick on ones on the other hand ...

bikepro

Yes, they were called "Hot Patches". https://www.centralsupply.com/amflo/trma.pdf

Wildwood 

I'm 63 and I remember them.
My Dad used them on the 'family balloon-tire bicycle' a few times, he never would give up on a perfectly good tube that usually only got holes one at a time. Of course nobody in the family ever wanted to pump the tires past 25 psi, as it was mostly used for neighborhood jaunts - to a friend's or to the corner store or to the Saturday movie a couple of miles away.
I remember the thick iron holder getting clamped in place, the smell (of course), and I remember seeing the sizzling 'burn' from the corner lit to the other side. How long did it take? like 5? Probably less, more like just a couple. my mind forgets some of the details. But not that the hot metal clamp was still dangerous when all was finished.

That's a memory blast from decades past....

OldsCOOL

I've not heard of this type of kit but do recall my dad fixing my flats by burning the glue before applying the patch. I did this a while back.

browngw 

It's the way I learned from my Dad. I was led to believe that the flame burned off the solvent in the glue making it tacky faster. Modern glues often tell you to wait until its tacky. Maybe the lawyers suggested no open flames.

Bill Kapaun

I started working in the gas station in 1964 and the hot vulcanizing method was pretty much phased out by then.
I think the only ones doing it were just using up the rest of their patches.
Fire & gas stations aren't a real good mix when the new "cold" method worked well.

fietsbob

Soon the question will be 'do remember when car tires had inner-tubes'?

zonatandem

Yup, remember those well.
However did not put the 'patch kit' on fire . . .
Put the glue on the tube, light the glue with match. Blew out the flame and stuck on the patch.
Yup, vulcanizing! Worked great.
Rudy/zonatandem

Joe Minton

I still have one of those clamps in the bottom drawer of my tool box -- nostalgia.

Joe

Grillparzer

The hotel where I work uses retro styled dial phones on the floors and in the lobby that connect to our receptionist desk when the receiver is picked up. I passed a young girl the other day and overheard her asking her mother, "How do you work it?"

rydabent

At 75 of course I remember them. As someone mentioned it also applied to car intertubes before tubless tires that came out in the early 50s. During WWII when tires and tubes were hard to get, a lot of tubes had a lot of "hot patches" on them.

StephenH

I remember my dad using them a few times- that would have around 1966-1970, I guess. I assume that was on bike tubes.
In 1976, I started working at a dump truck place doing a lot of flat-fixing on tires with tubes, and they didn't use those, it was regular patches and glue and all. Which also worked fine if you did it right.

hockeyref

I'm only 48 and I can remember them & I still have a clamp too. I can remember using a couple of those to repair a blow out on a 20" tube that a cold patch wouldn't fix...... (I was desperate and it was Sunday so no way to buy a new tube - yeah, I can remember when everything was closed on Sunday too...

Wildwood 

I was a paperboy using a single speed balloon tire JC Higgins. On Sunday mornings, when the papers weighed the most, I had to pump my tires at home - the gas station at my corner pick-up was closed on Sundays until noon and their air compressor saved me a lot of tire pumping. Just not on Sunday AM.

RobertL

Yes, that's how I remember doing it as well.

jsjcat

Nothing like the smell of a hot patch going on in the morning!

Skullo 

The gas station I worked at used hot patches on both tubes and tubeless tires. The brand we use were called "Monkey Grip" My dad taught me to light the glue on fire on bike tubes before that. I still do it. Todays glue does not burn as good.