Patent GB-459903-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to the manufacture of filter tip cigarettes
IPC: A24C5/47
Filed: 1935-08-28
Abstract: 459,903. Cigarette-making machines. WIX, A., and WIX, M., 338, Goswell Road, and EDWARDS, W. F. M., I. Kempsford Gardens, Earl's Court, both in London. Aug. 28, 1935. No. 24083. [Class 130] Assembled cigarettes and filter tips are supported and /or rotated during the application of uniting bands by means engaging internally the end or ends of the assembly. As shown in Figs. 1 and 2, the tips are ejected by a plunger 5b, having a hollow end, from a forming unit 5a or transfer drum and pass between a fixed guide 6 and flutes 3a in an intermittently rotatable drum 3 on to prongs 1c carried by spindles 1 mounted in a sleeve secured to the drum. Individual cigarettes 8 are accelerated by a belt 7, from a stream emanating from a continuous rod machine and delivered into the flutes a to abut against the filter tips and be impaled on the ends of the prongs. Gummed bands 10 of cork &c. are fed, by an intermittently or continuously rotatable suction drum 9 into contact with the assemblage and are stripped from the drum 9 as the assemblage moves under a ramp 11 which may be resiliently mounted. During the movements of the drum 3 gear wheels 1a on the sleeves 1 engage a stationary gear segment 16 and wrap the band around the assemblage. A picker 14a removes the united assemblage from the prongs 1c while it is retained in the flute 3a by a guide 12 and subsequently the assemblage is delivered by stripping fingers 14 on to a belt 15. In a modified construction, the cigarettes issuing from the continuous rod machine are accelerated to form spaces into which filter tips are deposited and an aligned filter tip and cigarette is caused to engage the prongs. In the construction shown in Fig. 4, the filter tips 5 are ejected by a plunger 5b from a forming unit 5a into chambers 21a in an intermittently rotated spider 21 and the cigarettes are fed from a hopper (not shown) into flutes 22a in an intermittently rotatable drum 22. When a cigarette and stub are in alignment with each other and with a pronged member 1c on a spindle 1, a plunger 24 moves the cigarette axially into engagement with the tip and simultaneously the spindle 1 is moved axially to impale the tip on the prongs and carry it out of the chamber 21a. After the band 10, carried on a suction drum 9, has been wrapped around the assembly by rotating the spindle 1, the spindle is moved axially to carry the united assemblage clear of the drum 9. A gripper 25 holds the cigarette on the drum while the prongs 1c and the plunger 24 are withdrawn. The united assembly is retained on the drum by a guide until it is discharged on to a belt. In another modification, double lengths of cigarette rod are carried by a fluted drum into alignment with filter tips disposed in front of two oppositely disposed rotatable pronged members which are moved to pierce the tips and abut them against opposte ends of the rod. The assemblage is united by bands and severed by a cutter. Double lengths of cigarette rod issuing from a continuous rod machine may be diverted alternately to separate assembling and uniting units and means may be provided for ensuring that the seam of the cigarette in the assembly is in alignment with the seam of the band. The bands may be applied by an endless belt carried upon rollers mounted on a reciprocating carriage and the adhesive may be dried by a heated roller which may rotate the pronged element. The filter tips may be formed upon the pronged element and may consist of wrapped or unwrapped strip material rolled into a spiral formation, or of cotton wool. The Provisional Specification states that the completed cigarette may be subjected to a rolling operation to close the holes left in the tip by the prongs.