The present invention relates to apparatus for manipulating plain or filter cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, cheroots and analogous rod-shaped articles of the tobacco-processing industry. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus for recovering natural, reconstituted and/or artificial tobacco from unsatisfactory and/or potentially unsatisfactory rod-shaped articles wherein one or more rod-shaped fillers of tobacco are surrounded by one or more tubular wrappers consisting of cigarette paper, imitation cork, sheets of reconstituted tobacco or other suitable wrapping material. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus wherein a rotary centrifugal aligning device or an analogous means converts a supply of randomly distributed unsatisfactory or potentially unsatisfactory tobacco-containing rod-shaped articles (hereinafter referred to as unsatisfactory cigarettes with the understanding, however, that this term is to embrace unsatisfactory or potentially unsatisfactory plain or filter cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, papyrossi and/or cheroots) into a file which is transported past one or more mobile wrapper-breaking implements serving to open up or break the wrappers lengthwise preparatory to segregation of tobacco particles from wrapping material, filters and/or other constituents of unsatisfactory cigarettes.
Commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 3,255,762 to Baier discloses an apparatus wherein two peripherally toothed rotary disc-shaped implements are disposed in two mutually inclined planes and their marginal portions cooperate to break up the wrappers of successive unsatisfactory cigarettes which are caused to form a file under the action of a rotary centrifugal aligning device.
The making of cigarettes invariably involves the production of a certain minor percentage of unsatisfactory or potentially unsatisfactory cigarettes which are segregated from satisfactory products and are thereupon treated for the purpose of recovering the particles of tobacco for reintroduction into a cigarette maker or for admission into a machine for the making of reconstituted tobacco. As a rule, the recovery involves opening up the wrappers so as to enable a sifting or another suitable classifying device to segregate the thus freed tobacco particles from fragments of wrappers, filters and the like. The aforediscussed apparatus which is described and shown in the patent to Baier is quite satisfactory for reliable opening of wrappers of unsatisfactory cigarettes.
It has now been found that the rate of delivery of unsatisfactory cigarettes to and the quantity of such cigarettes in the rotary aligning device of the apparatus which is disclosed by Baier are important parameters which determine the economy of the tobacco recovering operation. If the aligning device is overfilled with unsatisfactory cigarettes, the cigarettes are likely to pile up and jam so that the device is incapable of forming a continuous or substantially continuous file of properly aligned unsatisfactory articles. Moreover, such overfilling can adversely affect the opening operation by preventing the articles from assuming a predetermined orientation during transport along the rotary opening implements. Failure of the implements to open a wrapper all the way from the one to the other end will prevent the sifting mechanism from recovering all particles of tobacco from the interior of the respective wrapper.
If the quantity of unsatisfactory articles in the aligning device is insufficient, the wrapper-opening operation is likely to be interrupted and the apparatus is then utilized at less than maximum capacity.
It can also happen that the fillers and/or other constituents of unsatisfactory cigarettes contain hard or very hard substances which are likely to damage or destroy one or more wrapper-engaging (opening) implements. Such hard substances can also enter the rotary aligning device of the aforediscussed patented apparatus to advance into the range of the wrapper-engaging implements between the unsatisfactory articles which form the aforementioned file. Even minor damage to the wrapper-engaging portions of the implements is likely to prevent such implements from opening or breaking the wrappers so that the confined tobacco is not available for segregation from the wrappers downstream of the opening station. In other words, even minor damage to (e.g., breaking away of chips from) the wrapper-engaging portions of the implements can immediately and considerably reduce the efficiency of heretofore known tobacco recovering apparatus.