No_6_September_and_October__1950 — Page 31

ing is added. They are then moved into the Super High- speed Tubaces Cutting Machine by a continuous leather feed band where they are cut into exceedingly fine. silky strips. These strips, having acquired quite a large percentage of moisture during the previous processes of softening and flavouring, have now to be dried a little in order not to impede their progress through the cigaretle making machine. A Bucket Elevator feeds them into a Rotary Drying Cylinder and an intermediate Conveyor with canvas band takes them to a Rotary Cooling Machine for cooling. To this Cooling Machine is attached a Cyclone Dust Collector for collecting dust from the machine while rotating. The fine tobacco now passes into a duct through which they are drifted to the storage room below to be left overnight in separate wooden cases for fermentation. This covers all the work

on the top floor.

Cn the first floor adjacent to the storage room is installed the Highspeed Cigarette Making Machine, which picks up the tobacco strips at one end and rolls out the finished cigarettes at the other. This machine is of a most ingenious design. The paper tubes for the cigarettes are formed from rolls of narrow tape, the correct amount of tobacco is filled into these tubes, and the ends are trimmed in one operation. While this is going on, the paper is being printed, bronzed with the trade mark and starched. Finally, as the crowning bit of ingenuity, fifty cigarettes are separated at regular intervals on a very delicate weighing machine which automatically

to

adjusts the amount of tobacco Alled into the tube, reducing the quantity if the weight of the fifty cigarettes is too high, and increasing it if the weight is too low.

The machine is fully automatic and the time taken by hundreds of cigarettes to pass through all the different stages described can be counted in a matter of seconds.

In order to protect the cigarettes thus made from acquiring mould, they are placed in special trays which are hung on movable racks and wheeled to the drying room where the moisture content is reduced to its proper level. These drying rooms are maintained to the exact degree of humidity and temperature required for the purpose. From the drying room, they are wheeled in hanging trays to the packing room where skilful workers sitting in rows of specially designed benches do the packing. The cigarettes now in boxes of 10 packets each are finally moved down to the cigarette godown on the ground floor.

The time and temperature required for the entire process, from softening to final drying, are all set with expert care according to the nature of tobacco leaves as well as to the

condition of the weather.

The very modern and up-to-date equipment to be found at the Hongkong Tobacco Company, and the expert and experienced personnel who operates it, ensures a product which comes up to the highest standard of cigarette quality and adds one more product to the many of which Hongkong can justly be proud.

TRICITY HOUSE Hong Kong Electric

Co., Ltd.

MAT

The Highspeed Cigarette Making Machines.

A

BLUE

ཟད་ཡ་' -

SNOWCEM Beautified

THIS BUILDING

For more beauty, more light, better protection and long range economy, stipulate Snowcem and be proud of the "finish- ed" appearance you'll get in your building from this remarkable water-

proofing cement paint.

Green Island Cement Co., Ltd.

TELEPHONE HOUSE

TEL. 21463

CIRCLE

CMC

PRODUCT

29

SM-13