GB1101071A - Improvements in or relating to continuous rod cigarette-making machines - Google Patents

Abstract

1,101,071. Cigarette making machines. MOLINS ORGANISATION Ltd. 6 Aug., 1964 [9 Aug., 1963], No. 31648/63. Heading A2C. In the production of a continuous tobacco filler comprising metering tobacco from a supply to form a tobacco filler shorts are removed to produce a flow of shorts which is fed back to the filler to produce an oversize filler which is trimmed in such a way that the shorts, after trimming, are retained in the filler. Fig. 1 shows a machine corresponding to that disclosed in the Specification 988,448 in which tobacco is fed by a drum 10 past a refuser roll 13 to a picker roller 11 which projects it across a guide plate 12 into a gap between the member 14, having air passages 15, and a perforated suction roller 16. Tobacco is sucked up a duct 19 against the underside of an air-pervious conveyer band 22 to form a continuous rod. Particles of tobacco not sucked into the duct 19 fall into a chamber 27. Shorts from the tobacco being fed from the space Z fall into the space between a plate 31 and a drum 10 and pass through gap Y into the pockets 39 of a valve 38. The valve 38 is rotated so as to supply shorts continuously to a manifold 40 and pipe 41. The shorts are blown by a fan through the pipe 41 to a horizontal pipe 41A having a nozzle 41B. The spread of shorts from the nozzle 41B is of a length equal to a third of the downstream length of the drum 10. Alternatively, the shorts may be blown through one of the orifices in the plate 14 (Fig. 5, not shown) in which case they are distributed along the downstream 80% of the length of the duct 19. Automatic trimming means as disclosed in Specification 929,338 may be employed, trimming taking place on that portion of the rod not including the shorts.