GB456839A - Improvements in and relating to stripping mechanisms for tobacco leaf stemming machines - Google Patents

Abstract

456,839. Tobacco stemming machines. AMERICAN MACHINE & FOUNDRY CO., 511, 5th Avenue, New York, U.S.A. Feb. 14, 1935, No. 4755. Convention date, Sept. 6, 1934. [Class 130] In a tobacco-stemming machine in which the leaves are drawn between two rotary stripping devices, having stripping members which act repeatedly on the leaves, each rotary stripping device is provided with a knife which coacts with the knife of the other stripping device to sever the stem of the leaf at a predetermined point. Tobacco leaves are placed on a belt 10 and the butt ends are stripped by a thresher T while the leaves are grasped between belts 10, 13. To ensure that leaves of different thickness will be grasped, spring- pressed rollers 19 are held against the belt 10. After leaving the thresher T, the butt ends are held between twisted chain conveyers, which turn the leaves into a vertical position, where they are gripped by fingers G and carried between stripping devices mounted on shafts 27, Fig. 2. Each stripper is formed by carded bars 22 supported between heads 25, 26 on the shaft 27. The bars, after acting on a leaf, are caused to recede by levers 30 actuated by a stationary cam 33, and the bars are set so that, upon engagement with the leaf, two bars 22 either follow each other, as shown in Fig. 2, or mesh with one another. The stems S are severed when their thickness does not exceed that of the cross veins by knife blades 39 on a star wheel 40, the cutting edges of the blades on one shaft 27 being inclined and bevelled in the opposite direction to those on the other shaft 27. The wheels 40 have keys 41 projecting through the shafts 27 into shafts 43 which can be adjusted simultaneously, while the machine is in operation, by racks 47 engaged by gears 46 on a common manually adjustable shaft 45. The position of the knives is indicated on a scale 49 by a finger 48 carried by the rack 47. In the modified construction shown in Fig. 9, the knife 52 on one shaft has a pair of spaced cutting edges between which the knife 51 on the other shaft enters, and stripping is effected by notched blades O.