I'm still confused why both ends taper. Is to help lighting the cigar?
Yeah, there are several reasons:
It does help light the cigar
Looks like the cigar Daddy Warbucks would burn
You spark up, the ember gets going, suddenly the volume rolls in, thus it has a tempo
The natural shape of the leaf tapers toward the foot anyways
and most of all...
That's how some long dead wood whittling artist shaped my mold!
Most of your torps you see are really just a pyramid, cause they have a short quick taper at the head, but straight sides otherwise. That's no torpedo. My perfecto mold has straight sides, with one end tapered more gradually than the other. I use the more gradual end as the foot, cap the less gradual end for the head, stuff more in the middle and wrap the middle looser, so that it swells once it's out of the mold. I like to get the head fairly round. Some day I'll get good at it. Maybe when I retire and set up a lounge like Leaf Lover. Right now, I'm just playing amateur.
I gotta go home and bunch some now. Too much talkin about it. I need to smell it.