US 4,536,149 AGranted

Apparatus for making grooves in cigarette filters

AssigneeBrown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation

InventorsErik I. Naslund, Steven P. Reed

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Abstract

An apparatus for, in one advantageous embodiment, concurrently forming a plurality of generally longitudinally extending grooves in a filter rod, and in another advantageous embodiment, for making small apertures in the grooves as the grooves are being formed in the filter rod. The apparatus includes a reciprocating die having an upper and lower die block. Each die block includes protruding, elongated projections which are adapted to be embedded into the filter rod upon closing of the die to impress grooves in the filter rod located in the die. In the embodiment wherein apertures are to be formed in the grooves, aperture forming punches are associated with each of the groove forming projections for punching apertures in the grooves as they are being formed. The apparatus further includes a filter rod conveying device located between the upper and lower die blocks for guiding the filter rods through the die and for positioning the filter rods to be grooved in the reciprocating die.

Claims18

Dependent claims

An apparatus for making grooves in filter rods comprising:

die means comprising a lower die block and an upper die block, both die blocks being adapted for movement toward and away from each other, the lower die block having elongated groove forming projections projecting generally toward the upper die block and the upper die block having elongated groove forming projections projecting generally toward the lower die block, whereby the groove forming projections of the lower die block and upper die block are adapted to be embedded into a filter rod disposed between the lower and upper die block to impress grooves in the filter rod when the lower and upper die blocks are moved toward each other;
means disposed between the lower and upper die blocks defining a path of travel of the filter rods through the die means;
means associated with the path defining means for positioning the filter rods to be grooved in the die means between the lower and upper die blocks in longitudinal alignment with the groove forming projections;
stripper means for holding the grooved filter rods in the path defining means as the lower and upper die blocks move away from each other to allow the groove forming projections to be extracted from the filter rod;
and,
means for moving the lower and upper die blocks toward and away from each other.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.