Wrapping paper inspection apparatus and tobacco wrapping machine

A tobacco wrapping machine for continuously wrapping tobacco shreds with wrapping paper with a low flame spread material arranged in stripes on one side thereof to form a tobacco rod, then cutting the tobacco rod to a predetermined length, and successively supplying tobacco rods of the predetermined length to a next process, comprising:

• a liquid application section including a nozzle arranged in a wrapping-paper feeding path, in which the wrapping paper is unwound and continuously fed, for spraying a volatile liquid into the one side of the wrapping paper and wetting the one side of the wrapping paper with the volatile liquid, the volatile liquid showing a difference in infiltration rate between base portions of the wrapping paper not affixed with the low flame spread material and the stripes of low flame spread material;
• an image pickup section including an image pickup position defined on the wrapping-paper feeding path downstream of said nozzle, for irradiating light to the wrapping paper wetted with the volatile liquid by said nozzle at the image pickup position while the volatile liquid is being infiltrated into the wrapping paper, picking up the light transmitted through the wrapping paper or the light reflected from the one side of the wrapping paper, and generating an image signal on the basis of the detected light;
• and
• a wrapping paper inspection section for determining whether there are defects in the low flame spread material on the wrapping paper from the image signal generated by said image pickup section, and recording a result of determination;
• and
• an air blower configured to blow off liquid sprayed on the wrapping paper, the air blower being arranged downstream from image pickup section.