Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, Inc.

Rothmans International Services Limited

Rothmans of Pall Mall Limited

Takeshi Nehyo

Warren A Brackmann

Stanislav M Snaidr

Michael H Sheahan

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

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.

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Willowdale, Canada

Takeshi Nehyo