Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, Inc.

Rothmans International Services Limited

Rothmans of Pall Mall Limited

Rothmans of Pall Mall Canada Limited

Michael H Sheahan

Warren A Brackmann

Stanislav M Snaidr

Takeshi Nehyo

Hans Klotz

Kenneth P Davidson

A cigarette package is dimensioned to hold an array of cigarettes in multiple rows and comprises a plurality of vertical walls defining a hexagon in cross-section. The walls are dimensioned to bear against an array of cigarettes in the package and having the same cross-sectional shape as the package. The package has a distinctive external appearance while permitting twenty or twenty-five cigarettes to be accommodated in three or four rows in the array.

Cigarette package design

Fibrous materials are opened from a metered flow thereof using an opening roller and are subjected to a controlled and adjustable further opening operation to input desirable properties to the fibers. The invention is particularly described with respect to cut tobacco fibers and glass fibers.

Controlled opening of fibrous materials

Individual assembly of cigarettes from cut tobacco and preformed cigarette paper tubes is facilitated by providing charges of cut tobacco in cartridges. An extension in the form of a hollow tube is provided at one end of the cartridge to enable the sheath enclosing the tobacco to be removed and the tobacco discharged into the paper tube. Specific equipment to effect the assembly also is described.

Device and method for assembly of cigarettes

Degradation of tobacco brought about by refuser and recycle procedures in conventional cigarette-making machine operations is eliminated by feeding, metering and opening tobacco from a reservoir directly onto the external surface of a rotary or rectilinear transportation device which conveys the tobacco to rod formation. Specific modifications to the Molins Mark IX and Hauni Protos cigarette-making machines are described.

Cigarette making machine hopper

Degradation of tobacco brought about by refuser and recycle procedure in conventional cigarette-making machine operations is eliminated by feeding, metering and opening tobacco from a reservoir directly onto the external surface of a rotary or rectilinear transportation device which conveys the tobacco to rod formation. Specific modifications to the Molins Mark IX and Hauni Protos cigarette-making machines are described.

A cigarette filler rod-forming method and apparatus therefor are described for production of a filler rod containing two different blends of tobacco, so as to provide to a cigarette formed from the filler rod more uniform smoking characteristics. Discrete bunches of tobacco of a first blend are formed by employing a vacuum wheel having a belt which forms chords of a circle, so that, after trimming, the bunches have a flat surface adjacent the belt and a curved outer surface. Spaces between the bunches are filled with tobacco of another blend at least to the maximum height of the bunches of the first blend of tobacco, by a variety of procedures.

Tobacco blend formation

The quality of a tobacco filler rod as formed in cigarette-making machines is improved. The improvement is achieved by by-passing all the metering and refusing mechanisms of a conventional cigarette-making machine and providing a wide carpet of opened tobacco particles directly to the filler rod-forming procedure.

Hopperless cigarette making machines

Tobacco trimmed from a filler rod is recycled and used in the control of the rod-forming operation. A reservoir vessel is divided into physically-separate chambers, a narrow one of which receives the recycled trimmed tobacco and a wider one of which receives cut tobacco. Tobacco is simultaneously fed from both chambers by a common feeding device to form a metered flow from which the filler rod is ultimately formed. The level of tobacco in the narrow chamber is sensed and the operation of the common feeding device is controlled in response to sensed levels outside a predetermined range. If the sensed level is too high, then the tobacco is being fed too fast to the rod formation and the common feeding device then is slowed down, thereby slowing the tobacco feed rate, while, if the sensed level is too low, then the tobacco is being fed too slowly to the rod formation and the common feeding device then is speeded up, thereby speeding up the tobacco feed rate.

Control of cigarette rod formation

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.

Growing community of inventors

Whitby, Canada

Michael H Sheahan