Patent GB-487069-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to the manufacture of cigarettes
IPC: A24C5/47
Filed: 1937-01-04
Abstract: 487,069. Cigarette - making machines. HACKING. F. W., and MOLINS MACHINE CO., Ltd. Jan. 4, 1937, No. 189. [Class 130] A continuous composite cigarette rod is formed by securing a strip of wrapping - material around axially - aligned cigarette and stub sections of double length while the sections are moving sideways but are stationary axially. Subsequently, the rod is moved axially to a position where mouthpiece cigarettes are severed from it. Double-length cigarettes are fed from a hopper 24, Fig. 1, by a fluted wheel 25 into a fluted drum 10 mounted on a rotating shaft 15 on which are mounted a disc 49 provided with a series of pivoted stub carriers 13 and a drum 14 provided with tubes 105 which receive the composite rods as they are formed. Multiple-length stubs are fed from a hopper 19 by a fluted wheel 20 enclosed in a shroud, and are out into three double-length stubs by knives 21. The lengths are delivered simultaneously into a slotted trough 31, Fig. 6, along which they are advanced by pushers 35 on an intermittently movable conveyer 34, until the leading stub is adjacent a shoot 39 down which it can roll. The conveyer then moves forward in two equal short stages to deliver the second and third sections of the multiple stub, and in its next movement brings the leading stub of the next multiple length adjacent the shoot. The doublelength stub is retained at the end of the trough 31 until a cam-actuated support 40, Fig. 3, is removed when the stub rolls down the chute between top and side guides 41, 43 until it is arrested on spaced strips 46 by a spring 44. A head 52 on the pivoted carrier 13 moves the stub along the strips 46 and maintains it in alignment with a double-length cigarette in the drum 10 and with one of the tubes 105 containing composite rods in the drum 14. A stationary cam 55, Fig. 1, advances a pusher 11 to bring the double-length cigarette into contact with the stub, and a cam (not shown) moves the tube 105 to bring the rod into engagement with the other end of the stub just before the position 79, Fig. 3, where the carrier 13 brings the stub into contact with a strip of pasted tipping-material 71 carried by suction members 80, 81. The strip of tipping-material is severed from a web by co-operating knives 69, 70, and is held by suction on a rotating drum 72. After the suction has been cut off by a valve 74, the tip is transferred to a raised segment 76 on a rotating roller 175, which has received stripes or patches of paste from a roller 77 running in a path of adhesive 78. The suction members 80, 81 are carried on hollow arms 82, 83 mounted on a shaft 85 and are oscillated by a cam-actuated lever 87. When the leading edge of the segment 76 comes into line with the lower edge of the suction member 81, the members 81, 82 move downwardly and peel the strip off the segment 76. As the head 52 moves the abutting sections through the space between the members 81, 82, the strip is wrapped partly around them and formed into a U. During further movement of the disc 49, a pin 190 on the carrier 13 engages a fixed cam 89 to move the carrier away from the stub while the limbs of the U are folded around the abutting sections by folding blades 93, 97. The blade 97 is operated by a cam 100 and swings through a short arc to wipe the upper end of the U over the abutting sections, while the blade 93, which carries a cam 95 engaged by the pivot pin 48 of the carrier 13, moves through a larger arc and wipes the lower limb of the U over the abutting sections to overlap the upper limb of the U. After the sections have been united and the paste dried by a heater in a shroud 112 around the drum 14, the cam 56 advances the pusher 11 to project a piece of the composite rod through a ledger tube 109 to enable a mouthpiece cigarette to be severed by a rotary knife 110. Further movement of the pusher 11 projects a further piece of the rod which is severed by a rotary knife 111. The cut cigarettes are carried away on a band 114. The knives may be carried on pivoted arms and rocked into and out of the cutting position. The stub may be formed by a filter plug, a mouthpiece which may be empty or filled entirely or partly with filtering or flavouring material or tobacco, a composite mouthpiece constituted in part by a length of wrapped cigarette rod and in part by a length of filtering or flavouring material, or a tubular piece either hollow or entirely or partly filled with filtering or flavouring material, or a mouthpiece comprising a length of tobacco filler in a wrapper which tobacco is of a different kind from that in the cigarette. Specifications 392,266 and 430,742 are referred to. The Provisional Specification also describes modifications in which (a) the stubs are fed into a shoot and pushed by a plunger against a pasted wrapping-strip, and through a passage formed by two parallel plates which forms the strip into a U before the stub is transferred to a pivoted carrier between the double-length cigarette and a continuous rod, and (b) a single continuous rod is formed by holding the wrapping-strips by suction on a perforated or porous belt which delivers the strips in a flat condition beneath aligned cigarettes and stub sections on a conveyer belt, the strips being folded around the adjacent sections by movable fingers or brushes.