Abstract: A cigarette testing apparatus wherein the cigarettes are transported in axially parallel peripheral flutes of a testing drum toward, past and beyond a testing station. A wobble plate is adjacent to one end of and rotates with the drum and supports a set of sleeve-like elastic sealing elements each of which is slipped onto the adjacent end of a cigarette when it approaches the testing station. The sealing elements are surrounded by resilient annular clamping members which tend to reduce their inner diameters and automatically compel the respective sealing elements to sealingly engage the peripheries of the inserted ends of cigarettes at the testing station. Pivotable cams are provided on the wobble plate to expand the clamping members downstream of the testing station in order to permit extraction of the ends of tested cigarettes from the sealing elements and insertion of untested cigarettes into the respective flutes.

Abstract: Filter cigarettes with multiplex filter mouthpieces wherein at least one filtering element constitutes an unwrapped filter plug having a reinforced porous peripheral layer are produced in a machine which is equipped with a perforating device for tubular envelopes connecting the mouthpieces to the respective plain cigarettes, or with a device for making holes in the web of wrapping material which is subdivided into uniting bands. The holes are provided in those portions of tubular envelopes which surround the reinforced porous peripheral layers. Filtering elements which constitute unwrapped filter plugs may be disposed at the free ends of the mouthpieces or adjacent to the plain cigarettes.

Abstract: A filter cigarette making machine wherein two plain cigarettes of unit length are connected to a coaxial filter plug of double unit length therebetween by an adhesive-coated uniting band which is convoluted around the filter plug and the inner ends of the plain cigarettes. The machine has a rotary drum-shaped draping conveyor and a heated stationary block-shaped rolling device adjacent to the peripheral surface of the conveyor to normally define therewith a gap of a width slightly less than the diameter of a group consisting of two coaxial plain cigarettes and a filter plug therebetween. Successive groups, each of which carries a non-convoluted uniting band, are fed into the gap by moving sideways whereby the groups roll about their own axes and the uniting bands are converted into tubular envelopes.

Abstract: Tobacco particles which escape from plain cigarettes and/or filter cigarettes in machines for the making of plain and filter cigarettes are partially separated from streams of suction air before such streams reach the main separator. This relieves the main separator so that the latter necessitates less frequent cleaning and/or replacement of filters. In a filter cigarette making machine with or without a main separator, one or more separators for reusable tobacco particles can be installed to collect reusable particles which escape at one, two or more stations where the escape of tobacco is likely and pronounced. Such separators employ suction fans, vessels below the respective units, and pipes which convey the contents of vessels to a tobacco removing device upstream of the fans.