After he puts the upper half of the mold in place, he puts the entire box into a screw press. The press operator will usually break down the press once, turn the bunch inside the mold and then rebox and press the bunch again, for a total pressing time of about an hour. Once the worker has pressed the cigar, he returns the wooden molds to the rolling tables. The roller removes the bunch and wraps it with the wrapper leaf, a supple, very elastic and visually beautiful leaf that has been cut in half. Keeping constant pressure on the bunch and the wrapper, the cigar maker rolls the leaf around the bunch and applies a bit of vegetable glue to bond the wrapper leaf together at the head so the cigar won't unravel.
Supervisors inspect each cigar by hand.
They feel it for weight and for any hard spots, which could indicate a plug, or soft spots, which can cause an uneven burn. They reject defective cigars. Then, in most factories, workers weigh the cigars in bunches of 50. Good cigar makers will have less than 1 gram of variation between 50-cigar bunches. Bunches with significant weight variations may be returned to the roller.