Inside the Leister booth at IRE 2025

By Emma Peterson.

New vacuum plate products, upgrades to the VARIMAT and more!

While at the 2025 International Roofing Expo (IRE), Heidi J. Ellsworth got the chance to host Dave Nordentoft and Brittany Wykle of Leister for a live episode of ReadListenWatch® (RLW). They started off with Brittany, who is an associate product manager at Leister, showcasing one of their new products — their new vacuum plate. She explained, “It's great for service crews when they're doing leak detection, they're going to narrow down their search to a certain area. And even if it's a 10x10 area or an 8x8 area, they can grid off the different placements and just spray soapy water everywhere and just move along and test for any kinds of openings and hopefully find those leaks.”

After getting a great demo from Brittany, the conversation shifted to Dave, manager of the roofing product category at Leister, about the updates that Leister has done on their flagship VARIMAT line. The original VARIMAT was released in the 1990s, and then there was version two, which has been out for the last 14 years. The iteration Dave is sharing about, version three or the VARIMAT 700, came about from listening to contractor feedback in the field. Dave explained, “We get that feedback, and we try to incorporate that into the next generation. So, there's numerous different things that we did from a physical standpoint to try to improve the overall welding process and user experience. We also utilized this as an opportunity to take some of the newer technologies that we've developed and integrate that in that we weren't able to do it with the V2.”

4 New features on the VARIMAT 700

1 – Improved welding pressure

The older versions of the VARIMAT had weights front loaded on the machine, but for this iteration they changed that design. Dave elaborated, “We've taken the center of the weight further back to center it over the pressure wheel, which is where we really need that...We were worried that it was just going to be heavier and perhaps less ergonomic. However, through this process we only ended up gaining four pounds of weight over the old unit with over 13 pounds of extra pressure now on that pressure wheel.” This improved welding pressure means that the user will gain better control over both their temperature and speed when using the VARIMAT.

2 – Telescoping axle  

Another feature that was added was an axle that can retract in and out of the back of the machine. Dave explained, “That allows us to bring the axle out and widen the stance on the machine so that it's more balanced side to side, more stable for all those millions of feet of lineal field scenes and so forth. But the contractor can still retract that axle back into the frame and utilize it to get up close to use it for flashing up to the wall or up to a curb and that sort of thing.”

3 – Improved power system

By improving Leister’s traditional trigger and lock pin system that is used for the blower release, the new version of the VARIMAT uses less power, making it more efficient.  They have also taken strides to making the way the power system is organized better by relocating the power supply cable from one end of the machine to the other. Dave explained, “It might seem like a small detail, but it really affects the welding process. Because as the machine works backwards, the cable was in the welding process. Now, with it relocated to the other end, we're trailing cable after the welding process. So it's less distracting and it should make it a better experience for the users.”

4 – Updated display

Version 3 of the VARIMAT also has an updated, bigger display. Dave shared, “With the new display, it's very easy to access all the different information that contractors would need in the field, ranging from the temperature, speed, airflow settings, but also the ability to access some of the preset recipes that we put into the machine. They can also access information about hours on the machine, distance traveled, the ability to save and create their own custom recipes.”

Read the transcript, Listen to the full episode or Watch the webinar for more about Leister, their vacuum plate and the updates in version 3 of the VARIMAT.