Molins Plc

John A Mills

Desmond W Molins

Hugh M Arthur

Eryk Stefan Doerman

Godfrey A Wood

Cigarettes are perforated by being rolled along a row of pins which are excited, for example by being vibrated. Vibration may be towards and away from the cigarettes so that the pins penetrate as a result of the vibration; the depth of penetration may be varied to control the size of the perforations. Alternatively the vibration may be in a direction transverse to the axes of the pins. In either case the pins may be mounted on a flexible member having a resonant frequency equal to the frequency of vibration. The vibratorary drive may be an electro magnetic device or a piexoelectric crystal. An alternative form of excitation of the pins involves passing compressed air through the pins and into the cigarettes, the pins being tubular for that purpose.

Manufacture of ventilated cigarettes

In the manufacture of ventilated filter-tipped cigarettes the continuous wrapper web for the filter rod is formed, at least at longitudinally spaced positions, with perforations or semi-perforations to allow a significant air flow into the filters of the finished cigarettes. The invention includes an apparatus for testing such ventilated cigarettes to check that the degree of ventilation is adequate.

Cigarette testing

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 filler in a continuous rod cigarette making machine, or the holes may be made in the wrappers of finished cigarettes.

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London, United Kingdom

John A Mills