Building a bunching machine

[Michibacy]

I'm working on a design (not sure if it's for commercial or personal yet) for a machine that will bunch the filler to proper tightness with a simple press of a lever. You still need to wrap with a binder and wrapper. But I think (if my idea works correctly), it will make the initial tightness of the cigar correct, but as normal, you would have to make sure your wrapper/binder is tight (enough) around the filler to insure proper tightness through and through.

I have to make a prototype first, but I think you will fill the trough with the filler, actuate the lever, wrap in binder, actuate the lever then continue to roll with wrapper.

The guide plates will be removable/replaceable/interchangeable to which ever size cigar you would like to make.

I'll keep you guys updated in a new thread with what I come up with.

That's a pretty good description thus far of what it'll do, but I thought I'd talk about the design as well a little bit.

This will be very similar (in workings) to a Top-O-Matic cigarette stuffer, different concept but same workings.

What I really could use from you folks is "How tight does a cigar filler have to be?"

I'm not looking for "tight enough" or "not too tight" comments, I need a genuine figure, either PSI applied, compactness etc. Any of these measurements would help, I can translate them to my unit of measure when the time comes.

Also, what is the need for this on a commercial market? It wouldn't roll the cigar like a lieberman, it would just make the filler solid enough to smoke well.

Thanks!

 

[Knucklehead]

The moisture content may be a factor in how tight to roll each cigar, and for what you're asking, "low case" would be too broad a term. Even my Powermatic manual injector requires a certain amount of feel in how tight to pack the chamber before injection into the tube. Sometimes it takes me a cigarette or two to develop that feel to compensate for the change in case my tobacco has undergone since my last session. Or a cigarette or two just to develop that feel due to being away from the injector for awhile. My guess is, and it's only a guess, that you're just going to have to play with it.

 

[deluxestogie]

The Lieberman device is a bunching machine. You add the binder so that the bunch you've created doesn't spread.

Bob

 

[Michibacy]

True Bob, I guess in my twisted mind I see it as a rolling machine as well as bunching machine. It does roll, but also binds.

Either way, in your opinion (as you are after all, Mr. D. Stogie), would a simple device that could produce similar results to a Lieberman be useful? Or would improving (if possible) the lieberman be a better route?

 

[deluxestogie]

At its most elemental level, a Lieberman is a remarkably simple device. They do get fancy, but can be pretty basic: a tensioned mat passing over a curved surface. What sort of mechanics did you have in mind?

Bob

 

[Michibacy]

A lever Press/mold form device. The mold would have a shock/spring system to absorb and distribute force. Pull the lever down after filling the trough, apply tension until either it makes a click noise or until it's bottomed out. Still working on mechanics in detail.

 

[darren1979]

The trouble I see your going to have here is getting the tobacco into the binder with out crushing the filler or damaging the binder.There's going to be 2 ways of getting a binder onto the filler, one is injecting but that would require the binder to be pre-made or the second is to roll the binder around the filler, but the second has been done before.

 

[Michibacy]

The point I have failed to make is that this device would indeed require hand rolling the binder onto the filler. It's a step between a mold and press, and hand rolling.

The goal would be to have a device that properly compacts the binder/filler to "the right tightness".

I am a huge fan of the hand rolled concept, completely unmechanized, but I think there is some leeway between a machine doing it for you, and doing it completely by feel.

This machine would (should) compact the filler to the right tightness for a good draw, but still require you to wrap in the binder around the filler, and the wrapper around the 2/3 finished cigar.

It would be a "beginner torcedor" device.

That all being said, maybe this is just a flop in design

Looking over some old Miller Durbul and Peters catalogs, it looks like they had some "bunching devices" that didn't wrap a binder around the filler, it just formed it and tightened the filler to the necessary tightness.

 

[BarG]

That's a pretty good description thus far of what it'll do, but I thought I'd talk about the design as well a little bit.

This will be very similar (in workings) to a Top-O-Matic cigarette stuffer, different concept but same workings.

What I really could use from you folks is "How tight does a cigar filler have to be?"

I'm not looking for "tight enough" or "not too tight" comments, I need a genuine figure, either PSI applied, compactness etc. Any of these measurements would help, I can translate them to my unit of measure when the time comes.

Also, what is the need for this on a commercial market? It wouldn't roll the cigar like a lieberman, it would just make the filler solid enough to smoke well.

Thanks!

You have a lot of aspirations on stuff but if you realy want to prosper at it you need the idea and the prototype and the means to produce. Look around, We are mostly all do it your selfers as FmGrowit once mentioned. If I came up with a good one I would do it myself. Heh Heh.

 

[AmaxB]

I have to agree with BarG
PSI, compactness if I were to be making 10,000 an 8 hour day this would be important and I would be the owner of a machine capable of such production.
I believe for the "JOE" the doing is as much or more fun than that of the smoking, the thought of hand made over rides that of produced rendering an injector as an item
not needed. To own a lieberman is a novelty not a necessity and can remove value, sort of like a model ship in a bottle if created by hand it is viewed as craft/ art if handed over to a machine
to produce, it is just a ship in a bottle.
How ever if you came up with a machine that could bunch with a given accepted style and a wonderful secret blend you could be on to something.
Even with a lieberman the tobacco is hand bunched. The draw is in the bunch.

 

[DGBAMA]

I have not made many, but thinking a Buncher that did not wrap a binder (like a Lieberman does) could be a PITA. filler in good case is quite springy. Bunched tight enough to make a good draw would quickly expand to being too loose when removed from the Buncher before a binder could be applied.