I have a concept for a rolling machine I intend to build. I’ve found that really good RYO tobacco requires a certain compression and thickness for a perfect draw. The standard cigarette is 8mm diameter, which is way too big for a good RYO taste (a good RYO should be between 4 and 6 mm); moreover, the compression on standard tube injected cigs is too loose — you want a good RYO to be a bit tighter than the injected shredded lead. And the tobacco itself needs to be .6mm width cut or less to give a good, even burn.Alright, I haven't seen any tutorials for this, but I'm sure someone else has already figured it out.
The objective here is to use a tube loader (like a Top-o-matic or Powermatic) to load a rolled rolling paper (like a Raw or a Zig-Zag).
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Step 1) Roll a paper around a pen. The pictured pen works perfectly for rolling a paper into a tube that fits the tube mount on the tube loader.View attachment 44182
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Step 2) Place the tube on the mount of the tube loader and load the desired amount of Tobacco. It may take some tweaking depending on what papers and shred size you use. Be sure to fill the edges of the fill chamber first.
For reference, I am using Raw 1 1/4 size papers, and my tube loader is configured for 100mm filter tubes.
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Step 3) Place your finger on the open end of the tube, and with your other hand operate the crank handle on your tube loader to load the cigarette. By placing your finger over the end of the tube, it will prevent the Tobacco from spilling out the end and will cause the cigarette to pop off of the mount at the end of the crank handle travel distance, like a filter tube would. Retract the crank handle to free the cigarette from the mechanism.
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Step 4) Roll the cigarette between your fingers a bit to ensure it's not too tight and there are no tight spots. Alternately if the cigarette is a bit loose pack it by tapping it.
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Step 5) Use scissors or another appropriate tool to cut the scraggly ends off for clean looking ends, if desired.
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And there ya have it. I just figured this out tonight, I'm sure other people have figured this out before but I haven't seen a guide on this anywhere, so I figured I'd post it here. It's a fun new way for me to make cigarettes using a device I usually reserve for shreds that don't roll well by hand or for when my hands don't wanna be as dexterous as I like. Enjoy
The concept I have in mind — which maybe I should keep to myself (but I’ve learned a lot from you guys, so I owe some thanks to this site) — is a similar mechanism found in those rolling devices made by Rizla where you put the tobacco in the bottom and the paper situated against a piece of fabric. It would be very simple, but tough to perfect. You can buy 100 foot rolls of ungummed and uncut OSB cigarette paper. You basically build a device that cuts the paper and gums the top line with an adhesive. Below the paper is a small hopper. Once the right amount of tobacco is in the small hopper, a rod comes down, compresses it just a little, and then that rod lifts the fabric up and rolls the cigarette.
I hope to add it to the .5mm cutting device I’m working on.
All that being said, I like what you’ve done there. Nice work.
