GB983504A - Improvements in or relating to apparatus for handling articles such as tipped cigarettes - Google Patents

Abstract

983,504. Packaging; cigarette trays; shoots. AMERICAN MACHINE & FOUNDRY CO. June 19, 1961 [April 4, 1960], No. 11849/60. Headings B8C, B8D and B8S. A method for stacking articles, e.g. tipped cigarettes, which have a perimeter of one of their ends slightly larger than the other end, consists of arranging the articles in a row with their smaller ends touching and their larger ends placed at a predetermined distance apart and then placing further articles on top to complete another row and so on, in order to make a file with the longitudinal axes of the articles in each row lie in a plane parallel to that containing the axes of articles in each adjacent row. A hopper for stacking articles according to the above method comprises a flat back wall 28, a flat front wall and side walls 29 which diverge from the front wall toward the back wall, and a shoot 35. The articles pass through openings 33 into the shoot, being aided by a member 31 and inserts 32 and are removed at a station 36 by a collector means (not shown). The intermediate walls 39 and the outer walls 40 of the shoot are thinner at one end 41a than at the other 41b so that when the larger ends of the articles are at 41a and the smaller ends at 41b, the larger ends are staggered relative to one another to a greater extent than are the smaller ends, thus the longitudinal axes of the articles in adjacent shoot compartments remain parallel. A stacking tray for accommodating cigarettes according to the above method has steel packing members 24, Fig, 9, and may include a fluted base to locate the bottom row of cigarettes.