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Hand-rolling a Fat Cigar - No Mold, No Glue

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deluxestogie

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This video is a candid view of how I roll most of my cigars for personal use. I use filler that is in low case (noisy, but not crumbly), a double binder, no glue and no mold. Nothing fancy here. You get to see warts and all.


The filler includes a leaf of Mata Fina, which I forgot to mention. Although the sound amplifies the noisiness of the leaf as I handle it, the wrapper is indeed not as well cased as I prefer.

Bob
 

deluxestogie

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You make it look so easy.
Thanks to all for the kind words.

Most videos posted on rolling a cigar are demonstrating how to make a beautiful cigar, or how to make a beautiful cap, or how to carefully assemble the filler components using a particular method. My primary intent was to cast aside the complexity.

IF...if you are aspiring to a low-wage job in a cigar factory, or you intend to present your cigar(s) to someone accustomed to purchasing factory cigars (friend, enemy, brother-in-law or ...gasp... father-in-law), then you really will need to master using a mold, cigar glue, carefully trimming the wrapper, and most importantly, crafting a beautiful, symmetrical, head closed with a triple cap. "Book method", "entubado" and other systematic variants of filler assemblage make little difference in the draw, if the filler begins in low case.

A factory tuck cutter has one purpose: creating multiple cigars of identical length. It's a measuring device. For a one-off cigar, it seems to make more sense to trim the foot at the point where the filler is palpably solid.

Another point in posting this particular video (which could have been re-shot, edited and otherwise "improved") is to show how some of the common faults of cigar rolling--messy binder, splitting wrapper, etc.--are nothing to be embarrassed about, and can be remedied easily. For my own smokes, function outweighs beauty.

About the size and shape: If I need to fit a cigar bunch into a mold, then I am willingly adding several additional complexities to the task of cigar rolling. The bunch has to be within a specific range of diameter, in order to fit a mold. The packing and assemblage of the filler must fairly well match the shape (cylindrical, perfecto, etc.) of the intended mold. Use of a mold adds a minimum of an additional half-hour to the time required to roll a single cigar. When I do use a mold, I often do so in the evening, rotate the bunch 90° after 15-20 minutes, then leave it (them) in the mold overnight. Once I've gone to all that trouble, I usually go ahead and carefully trim the outer edge of the wrapper, in order to make the final stick a pretty one.

If I'm going to smoke a cigar moments after I roll it, it makes no sense to me to close the head, much less create a beautiful cap.

I do find it somewhat awkward to post a video for all to see, in which I produce a less-than-my-best looking cigar. But that's really the point. I'm just going to burn it. It's not an item for regal presentation. It's just a smoke.

[And for cigarette smokers who lament the cost of a shredder, buying tubes, etc. you can roll long-filler cigarettes (in your favorite cigarette blend ratio) with or without a binder, but wrapped in a wedge of bright leaf. It will taste like a cigarette, not a cigar. It will be a cigar, since it is tobacco wrapped in tobacco, but will smoke like a cigarette. It's even possible to incorporate a filter within the wrapper, at the head. The use of shred in a cigarette is a requirement of machine-rolled automation.]

Bob
 

Charly

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Thank you Bob for sharing this video with us.
You are right about the fact that a cigar does not need to be beatiful in order to be good, and it takes really a lot of time when you want a «commercial looking cigar».

It's so nice to be able to roll a cigar and enjoy it a few minutes later. No need for a triple cap, no need to use mold...

I roll the same way as you, and I think it's easier to get a good draw this way.
 

KiwiGrown

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Wow thanks Bob, I've never rolled a cigar, I want to give it a go and just assumed you need glue, molds and to to cap it.
 

TigerTom

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That was great! Simple, to the point.

Thanks for posting that.

It gets rid of a lot of the confusion first time rollers can run into and dispells the idea that enjoyable cigars are hard to roll.
 
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