Patent GB-487773-A (GB)
Title: Improved method and machine for making cigar bunches
IPC: A24C1/02
Filed: 1936-11-24
Abstract: 487,773. Cigar - making machines. INTERNATIONAL CIGAR MACHINERY CO. Nov. 24, 1936, No. 32119. Convention date, Feb. 18. [Class 130] In order to make cigar bunches without flat surfaces, hard portions or ridges, a charge of tobacco is separated from a mass in a measuring and transfer chamber and a disruptive, spreading or loosening force is applied, for instance by penetrating elements which are relatively moved or separated within the charge, before rolling the charge in a binder. In the machine shown, the filler tobacco T is fed by a cross-feed mechanism between stationary side walls 20 on to a platform 21 mounted on an arm 22 pivoted on a shaft 23. A length of tobacco on the platform 21 is severed by a reciprocating cutter 33 having a corrugated edge. The tobacco is held on the platform by a clamping arm or arms 34 pivoted on the shaft 23. As described in Specification 487,808, the platform 21 and the arms 34 are moved downwards about the shaft 23 by cams to bring the platform into engagement with the plate 50 of a compressing chamber, into which the cut tobacco length is pushed by a pusher 47. The members 21, 34, 47 return to the dotted-line positions and the tobacco length is compressed in the chamber 50 and into a measuring and transfer chamber 56 by a plunger 57 yieldingly supported in a block 58 sliding on a guide bar 59 and reciprocated by a lever 61 and cam 64. The charge in the chamber 56 is cut off by a knife 72 carried by a slide 73 reciprocated by means of the cam 64, a lever 79 and a rod 78. The measuring chamber 56 is swung from the receiving position, Fig. 1, to the discharge position, Fig. 4, by cams 88, 89 on the slide 73, which engage rollers 87 on arms 85 on a shaft 83 connected by arms 90, 92 to a bar 93 supporting the measuring chamber ; the bar 93 carries rollers 94 engaging the grooves of fixed cam members 95, and also carries grooved guide members 96 engaging rollers 97 on fixed arms 98. The measuring chamber comprises a pair of bars 102, Figs. 5 and 8, and a pair of plates 103, 104, each bar 102 carrying a row of needles 125 arranged parallel to the plate 103 or 104 to penetrate the tobacco charge. The bars and plates are carried by pairs of levers 101 pivoted on a pair of cross-bars 99 secured to the bar 93, the levers 101 carrying rollers engaging grooves in cam members 106 on a bar 107 having sleeves 108 slidable on posts 109 on the bar 93. When the measuring chamber is swung downwards as shown in Fig. 4, a hollow post 110 on the bar 107 comes beneath an U-shaped lever 111, pivoted on the arm 77 and having a roller 112 engaging a fixed cam 113, by which the bar 107 is depressed to cause the cam members 106 to separate the plates 103, 104 as in Fig. 8. The tobacco charge is held and disrupted by the needles 125, from which it is then stripped by bars 124 sliding on the needles and engaged at their ends by grooves 123 in frames 122 on a bar 117 slidable on the posts 109. The bar 117 is engaged by pins 116 on the bar 107 and has pins 121 for engagement with the bar 93 ; in the charge-receiving position, Fig. 1, the bar 107 is held against movement towards the bar 93 by a spring- controlled lever 130, which is forked to engage a pin 132 in a bracket 133 on the bar 107, and is engaged by a rod 134 on fixed brackets 135. The stripped and loosened charge falls on a rolling apron 127, tightened at the same time by a cam-operated arm 138, and is rolled within a binder by a rolling pin 139 supported by brackets 140 on a cam-operated lever 136. The bunch is confined to a given dimension by a roller 142 on brackets 141 on the lever 136, and the bunch is delivered to a spring clamp 144.