The cut-off of a continuous rod cigarette-making machine makes poorer ends at very high speeds. Therefore, double-length rods are cut off, are subdivided by a rotary knife while in a fluted drum, so producing excellent ends, are transposed so that the good ends are outermost, and are then made into mouthpiece cigarettes by inserting a double-length mouthpiece portion between them, uniting the assemblage with an encircling band and subdividing it to produce two mouthpiece cigarettes in which the ...

A cigarette filter attachment machine with a wrapper testing facility includes means for feeding pieces of tipping paper each of which is wrapped around associated tobacco and filter portions to join those portions to one another; means for testing the wrappers of the cigarettes for leaks; an upsetting device for momentarily upsetting the filter tipping operation to produce at least one cigarette with a deliberate leak in the joint between the tobacco and filter portions; and an ejection device ...

This invention is concerned with cigarette making systems including a testing device for detecting bad quality cigarettes. Basically, the cigarette testing device is itself tested by deliberately making test cigarettes containing predetermined faults and checking whether the test cigarettes are detected by the testing device. The deliberate faults may be holes deliberately made in the cigarette wrappers. The holes may be made either on the cigarette paper web before it is wrapped around the fill...

A conveyor system for conveying cigarettes or similar rod-like articles includes machinery for delivering cigarettes into a junction, and a reservoir including a reversible conveyor for delivering cigarettes to or from the junction to accommodate differences between the rates of supply and demand at the junction, characterized in that the reservoir is formed by a plurality of conveyors defining a zig-zag path extending substantially in a constant plane normal to the axis of the cigarettes and co...

A cigarette testing device has a drum which carries the cigarettes during testing, and a belt which extends around part of the drum and has integrally moulded portions at regular intervals cooperating with parts of the drum to form seals around the cigarettes during testing. This application is a division of application Ser. No. 466,839, filed May 3, 1974, now U.S. Pat No. 3,943,752, issued Mar. 16, 1976.

There is provided a method of and apparatus for packing rod-shaped articles, especially cigarettes. A rotatable turret is used, into which blanks are introduced into pockets of the turret, with partial folding of the blanks, whereafter groups of articles are axially introduced into the blanks in pockets, the article groups being introduced alternately from opposite sides of the turret. There is also provided an apparatus whereby article groups can be ejected alternately on both sides of a magazi...

Nested three-row bundles of cigarettes are formed in rapid, simple and effective manner by forming a three-row group of cigarettes in which each row contains the same number of cigarettes, removing one cigarette from one end of the center row of cigarettes and displaying the remainder of the center row cigarettes towards the one end a sufficient distance to cause nesting.

The invention relates to a method for checking that batches of cigarettes are complete and that the cigarettes are sufficiently filled. In spite of careful manufacturing, when cigarettes are produced and batches of cigarettes are filled in cigarette packs (11) using high-performance machines, it is possible that some of the packs of cigarettes manufactured have cigarettes missing or contain cigarettes which are not sufficiently filled with tobacco. The invention provides an improved, non-contact...

Cigarettes are made by forming a basic filler stream comprising particles of tobacco or artificial tobacco or a combination of both, folding around the basic filler stream a web of reconstituted tobacco, and enclosing the resulting combination in a continuous paper wrapper to form a continuous cigarette rod which is then cut into predetermined lengths. The web may be continuous or may be in an expanded form as described in British Patent Specification No. 1531463.

Ventilated cigarettes are made by perforating the wrapper of each filter over an area which lies within pre-formed perforations in the uniting band joining the filter to the tobacco rod. The filter wrappers may be perforated by pins on a rolling plate and fluted drum between which filter portions cut from longer filter rods are rolled to stagger the portions so that they can then be pushed into a single row.