HONG KONG TOBACCO CO., LTD.
HONG KONG TOBACCO CO LTD
General view of the factory building from King's Road.
When one thinks of tobacco factories, one thinks in terms of huge buildings and vast enterprises, the manufacture of cigarettes being normally carried out оп a vast scale by companies whose products are sold in millions of tins and packets all over the world.
However, there has been recently established in Hong Kong a cigarette making plant which, although comparatively modest in size, is a complete unit in itself, comprising machines of the very latest design for every stage of the preparation and manufacture of the leaf. This factory, owned and operated by the Hong Kong Tobacco Co., Ltd., is situated on King's Road. North Point.
This building, which was designed by Messrs. Minutti & Partners, is of reinforced concrete framing, three storeys high. with a frontage of 103'0" on King's Road and a depth of 100'0", and is built as a hollow square around an open central yard.
The design of the reinforced concrete involved several problems due largely to the necessity of carrying concentrated loads of large and heavy machinery and to the need for absolute cleanliness during the manufacturing process. In order to accomplish this purpose the architects designed the building with beams of 30'0" clear span, leaving the working areas clear of all column supports and providing for plenty of working spaces between and around machines. Some of the
machines weigh as much as 8 tons each and these, carried on the 30'0" spans, presented an interesting engineering pro- blem for such a comparatively small structure. The general design provides for a liveload of 200 lbs. per square foot on the floor slabs. To assist in obtaining the necessary cleanliness and to keep dust under control, all floors were finished with teak parquet which, in itself, is most unusual for a factory. All walls are tiled up to a height of 6′0′′, and the stairs are not only tiled but the walls have glazed tiled dadoes.
There is a cargo lift designed to carry 2000 lbs. which can be operated automatically or by an attendant, and a boiler has been installed which supplies steam and hot water for the various manufacturing processes.
To provide additional insulation all the interior and exterior walls are of Vi-Con blocks, laid by the general contractors, Hsin Chong & Co.
The design of the exterior is simple, but the canopies over the main entrance way with vertical lines extending above it combine with the symmetrical continuous window canopies on either side of the centre line to provide an attrac- tive appearance. The exterior walls are rendered with water- proof plaster finished with Snowcem, whilst the main entrance gate itself is of solid teak, 12′0′′ high and 13′0′′ wide, divided into two sliding sections carried on Henderson sliding door gear.
The Leaf and Strip Softening Machine and Conditioning Chamber.
Rotary Drying Cylinder and Rotary Cooling Machines.
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The Highspeed Tobacco Cutting Machines.
The description of an industrial building can be so much more interesting if the processing which takes place within its walls are understood, and the Managers of the Hongkong Tobacco Company have been kind enough to allow us to include the following exposition on the manufacture of their cigarettes.
The tobacco leaf, when it arrives in large bundles, is in dried out form in order to stand the journey and storage periods. When this dried tobacco arrives at the factory at North Point, it is first taken up to the top floor by the large cargo lift which is installed in the building and is then un- packed ready for processing.
As the leaves in this form are too brittle to serve any purpose, they have to go through a softening process on a Leaf and Strip Softening Machine where the leaves are con- veyed by a wiremesh band through the Conditioning Chamber which is fitted with steam spray pipes and vapour extraction fans.
The next step is stripping, which consists of separating the hard and harsh stems from the leaves. After the stenis are removed, the softened leaves are wheeled in specially made travs to the Casing Machine where blending takes place, and thence to the Flavouring Machine where proper flavour-
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