A mold will allow a horribly rolled cigar to look nice, though it may create more problems with draw. For beginning rollers, I always suggest rolling lots of cigars (maybe 100 or more) free-hand, while you learn that skill. If after that, you want to acquire the additional skill of rolling a cigar that will still draw properly following compression in a mold, then that's always an option.
The origin of the cigar mold was to enable a factory to fill a box of 50 cigars with identical sticks. Most of us don't really have that need. It wasn't for beauty. Most skilled rollers in factories can roll very lovely free-hand cigars...but they won't be identical.
The secret to ugly cigars is:
- Post them in this thread. Somebody may offer useful suggestions. (The early cigars most of us rolled were monstrosities.)
- Never, never expect to show them off to friends or (gulp!) a brother-in-law or father-in-law, until you've actually learned the skill.
- A mold encourages beginners to roll too many cigars at once, thus wasting valuable learning opportunities.
