JPS5842838B2 - Gold-plating method and device - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] TECHNICAL FIELD This invention relates to a method and apparatus for gold-plating.

When manufacturing cigarettes, a continuous tobacco rod is wrapped in paper to form a continuous tobacco rod, which is then cut into individual cigarettes.

Normally, the paper is marked with a closing number 11 indicating the brand.
This may include decorative metallic printing.

The deposited metal printing is applied by a method called kintsuke.

In this case, very fine particulate metal, for example a bronze alloy if a golden appearance is desired, is applied to the cigarette paper in the desired pattern.

Kintsuke is done when the paper is in the form of a continuous band.

In the conventional gold-plating process, a brown adhesive-containing ink is first printed in the desired pattern on the portion of the paper strip where the metal particles are to be deposited.

The brown ink is used so that if the metal particles do not stick to the printed area or are later removed, at least the appearance of the intended gilded area remains.

After printing the paper with brown ink, and before the ink dries, the paper strip is passed tangentially to the surface of the rollers.

By this time, very fine metal particles are sprinkled loosely and typically have a felted or roughened surface.

The rollers rotate so that the portion that engages with the paper moves in the opposite direction to the paper strip.

The metal particles in contact with the surface of the paper in the areas where no ink was deposited are removed by the second roller, which is located near the first roller and engages the paper downstream of the first roller. scraped off the surface.

The second roller usually has a roughened surface to make it easier to remove these unnecessary particles.

In order to supply fine metal particles to the first roller, a group of these particles is provided, and a third roller with a roughened surface or a surface made of felt material is inserted into the group of particles, and the third roller is inserted into the group of particles. 1 to transmit particles to it.

From the third point onwards, a doctor blade is provided to remove excess particles.

Excess particles removed from the paper strip by the second roller, as well as particles that did not stick to the paper strip when applied by the first roller, fall into a collection bin and are carried from there to the particle mass.

The plating device is housed in a generally box-shaped housing through which the paper strip passes continuously.

Metal particles are optionally supplied to the population within the housing.

This conventional work was unsatisfactory in many respects.

That is, the metal particles are not applied to the paper so that they do not change from beginning to end,
As a result, the appearance of the products was no longer the same.

The fact that the appearance is no longer the same is an undesirable result from the standpoint of product quality.

Due to application, airborne particles enter the bearings and moving parts of the equipment, causing premature fatigue and failure of the parts.

By rubbing the paper strip, the first and second rollers remove fibers from the paper, known as lint, which mix with the circulating metal particles and cause them to become less fluid.

The present invention provides an improved method and apparatus for gilding.

In this invention, finely divided metal particles suspended in an air stream are impinged on the surface to be gold coated in an application zone or apparatus.

This side is contoured with the desired pattern with wet glue,
Metal particles adhere to this adhesive.

The metal particles are carried in the air stream to the application area, and excess metal particles are carried away in the air stream from the application area.

No moving parts are used for metal fitting, and in contrast to conventional methods, a product that remains the same from beginning to end can be obtained.

A device serving as a source of metal particles may be located at a location remote from the applicator, but is in communication with the forward and return air streams, and the required amount of metal particles is carried onto the flow directed to the applicator. supply

One embodiment of the invention uses separate compressed air to transport the metal particles to and from the application area or equipment.

In another embodiment of the invention, a single power generating means is provided to transport pneumatic metal particles to the applicator and return excess pneumatic metal particles from the applicator.

Although this invention is particularly directed to the case where finely divided metal particles are used, the invention is not limited to that case.
Other finely divided particulate materials that can be suspended in the flowing air stream and adhere to the adhesive ring on the paper surface are also applicable.

Next, this invention will be explained with reference to the drawings.

Referring first to FIG. 1, a pinning system for a continuous cigarette paper strip 10 includes a pinning device 12. As shown in FIG.

The fitting device is a totally enclosed box-shaped structure, with an entry and exit slit 14.1 in the side wall near the upper enclosure.
6 is formed to allow the paper strip 10 to pass through the device 12 along a generally horizontal flow path.

A first discharge tube 18 is disposed within the device 12 and has a discharge orifice proximate to the paper web 10 such that it is oriented opposite to the intended direction of movement of the paper web 10 and forms an acute angle with the paper web 10. It is located in

A second discharge tube 20 is connected to a source of compressed air 22 and is positioned within the plating apparatus such that its discharge orifice is proximate to the paper strip 10.

The second discharge pipe 20 is arranged downstream of and parallel to the first pipe 18.

The second discharge pipe 20 may be omitted if desired.

A metal particle collection member 24 is disposed within the device 12 and has a downwardly sloping wall communicating with the metal particle outlet tube 26.

Device 12 is connected to a remote metal particle source device 28 .

Source device 28 , in the illustrated embodiment, includes a storage container 29 holding a population 30 of metal particles to be applied to paper strip 10 .

A screw conveyor feed 32 is connected to the container 29 and extends generally horizontally from the mass 30 outside the container 29 and into a sealed housing 34 .

A drive motor 36 is operatively connected to feed device 32 .

An air sparger 38 is provided within the housing 34 adjacent the feeder 32 to direct metal particles to the feeder 32.
form a mass of metal particles that are blown away and carried by the air.

An air sparger 38 is connected to a compressed air source 40.

An outlet of the housing 34 is connected to the first discharge tube 18 by a piping 42 for conveying an airborne flow of metal particles formed within the housing 34 to the discharge tube 18 .

A heavy component discharge line 46 of a cyclone separator 44 or other conventional air/solids separator communicates with vessel 29, and a light component discharge line 48 communicates with the atmosphere.

An artificial tube 50 of the cyclone separator 46 is connected to the metal particle outlet tube 26 of the device 12 and circulates excess metal particles from the device 12 via piping 52 to the source device 28.

A venturi type air supply device 54 is attached to the piping 52,
Conveying air is supplied to line 52 from a compressed air source 56 so that excess particles are directed to the cyclone separator 46 as an air conveying stream.

The embodiment of FIG. 1 operates as follows.

As the paper strip 10 passes through the device 12, on the side facing the discharge tube 18 it is printed with the outline of the desired gilding pattern in the printing area in the usual manner with brown ink or other adhesive ink, and then a fine gilding pattern is printed. A spray of metal particles is impinged by the force of compressed air from the first discharge tube 18 onto the surface of the strip, causing the metal particles to adhere to the wet inked areas and to give the appearance of the desired gilding pattern.

Metal particles that do not adhere to the wet ink or that do not remain in contact with the surface of the paper strip 10 fall into the collector 2 under the influence of gravity.
Fall to 4.

Any loose particles that remain in contact with the paper strip 10 but are not attached are removed by blowing an air jet from the second discharge tube 20.

The supply of fine metal particles from the source device 28 to the discharge pipe 18 via the pipe 22 in an air-conveying manner is carried out by the screw conveyor 3.
This is done by blowing the particles off the surface of the housing 34 and carrying them out of the housing 34 under the action of compressed air fed into the pipe 40.

A motor 36 rotates the screw conveyor 32 at the speed necessary to remove from the mass 30 the amount of metal particles to be sprayed onto the paper web 10.

Excess particles collected in the device 12 are removed from the inlet 5 of the cyclone separator 44 by the action of compressed air fed into the line 40.
0 is returned to the source device 28 as an air carrier stream in line 52 entering the air.

The metal particles being circulated fall through the heavy component outlet pipe 46 and reach the particle mass 30, and the air flows through the light component outlet pipe 4.
8.

The gilding operation described above for the embodiment shown in FIG.
Apart from 2, it does not require any moving parts, it easily and cleanly collects excess metal particles, it provides efficient and consistent plating, it controls the flow rate of the plating particles, and thus Solve the problems associated with traditional gold-plating work.

As a result of the use of the air cleaner 20, removal of excess particulate matter is more gentle than in the past using rollers with roughened surfaces.

As a result, there is less damage to the paper strip and less lint is produced than in the past.

Additionally, if lint does form, it is removed from the device by the air outlet tube 48, thereby avoiding the traditional problems caused by lint build-up and circulation.

The device 12 and the source device 28 can be spaced considerably apart from each other, allowing greater flexibility in their relative positions than in previous devices where all parts were contained within a single device. can get.

Since the size of the device 12 is much smaller than conventional gilding devices, the gilding device occupies a much smaller area of the printing area of the cigarette machine with the present invention.

Various modifications may be made to the method described with respect to FIG. 1 without departing from the scope of the invention.

For example, metal particles within the pipe 52 may be circulated to the housing 34.

In such a variation, the heavy component outlet pipe 46 of the cyclone separator 44 connects to the housing 34 instead of the storage vessel 28.
communicate directly with.

In this embodiment, the air for transporting the particles via the pipe 42 is supplied to the housing 30 as compressed air that is fed into the pipe 40.
or using a venturi-type compressed air supply similar in construction to air supply 54 but supplying compressed air at a higher pressure than air supply 54 .

A variation of the apparatus of the embodiment of FIG.
This is advantageous in that it is only necessary to compensate for the amount consumed in step 2.

In contrast, in the operation of FIG. 1, both recyclable and consumable materials must be removed from the mass 30.

It is advantageous to operate according to this variant in that the majority of the metal particles that are sprayed onto the paper strip are returned via the line 52, which simplifies the procedure.

A sensing device is attached to the particle feeding device to sense the amount of particles necessary to make up for the amount consumed from the circulating material during the metal plating operation, and energizes the motor 34 to measure the required amount of particles. can be fed into the feed stream from the population 30 continuously or intermittently.

The embodiment of FIG. 2 is shown as an alternative to the method of FIG. 1, although the actual plating process is performed in the same manner as described with respect to FIG.

In the embodiment of FIG. 2, the external compressed air flow in piping 38,56 required to circulate the metal particles in the embodiment of FIG. 1 is omitted and a centrifugal fan 60 is used in its place.

This provides the power for the pneumatic transport stream of metal particles to and from the plating device 12.

In this embodiment, particles that do not adhere to the wet ink on the paper 10 or otherwise remain in contact with the surface of the paper 10 and exit the plating device 12 via the outlet tube 26 are removed by the fan. 60 by the suction action upstream.

On the downstream side of the fan 60, the metal particles are transferred to the cyclone separator 6.
2, into any convenient type of air/solids separator.

An airborne stream of metal particles enters the piping 42 from the heavy component discharge pipe 64 of the cyclone separator 62 and is delivered to the plating apparatus 12.

Therefore, the metal particles colliding with the surface of the paper 10 are
The air is suspended in a flowing air stream by the compressive force of the air.

The fan 60 circulates the air with suspended particles throughout the virtually earthen system, thus providing the power to circulate the metal particles within the apparatus.

If desired, fan 60 may be replaced with another device capable of circulating air in a generally closed loop.

A valve 6B is provided in the fine component discharge pipe 66 of the cyclone separator 62 to control the flow rate of air exiting the separator 62.

For this reason, any small amount of air leaking into the plating device 12 around the inlet and outlet slits 14,16 is compensated for by a controlled discharge of an equal amount of air through the valved tube 68, The overall pressure balance within the device is therefore substantially uniform.

It is preferable to control the discharge from the valved vibro 8 to ensure that air flows in from around the sulins 14 and 16 at the inlet and outlet, and to prevent air from flowing out at these locations. .

Controlling the discharge of air from the device through valve 68 allows for lint removal, should it become necessary.

Although the purifier discharge tube 20 is omitted from the plating device 12 in this embodiment, it may be provided if it is necessary to remove particles from the uninked areas of the paper strip 10. good.

As with the variation of the embodiment of FIG. 1 described above, the amount of metal particles circulating through the device may be sensed by any convenient method, and compensatory particles may be added intermittently as needed. Or it can be fed continuously to the device.

Provision of metal particles to the device can be accomplished in any convenient manner, such as using the method described above with respect to FIG.

Introducing the feed material to the apparatus may occur at any convenient location, such as via line 70 to circulation line 52.

The plating apparatus 12, including the metal particle source supply 70, can be located remotely from the rest of the apparatus, providing relative positional flexibility.

The embodiment shown in FIG. 3 shows an improvement over the approach of the embodiment of FIG.

When using the embodiment of FIG. 2, it has been found that under certain conditions, when air-borne metal particles pass through the centrifugal fan 60, deterioration of the metal particles and damage to the fan can occur.

In the actual Mfl of FIG. 3, this problem is solved by placing the fan 72 within the light component outlet of the cyclone separator 74.

Return flow pipe 52 from device 12 is connected to the power of cyclone separator 74 as in the embodiment of FIG.

A heavy component discharge pipe 76 is connected to the container 29 of the source device 28 .

An air stop valve 78 is provided between the cyclone separator 74 and the vessel 29 to allow particles to enter the vessel 29 while isolating the action of the fan 72 from the vessel 29.

A fan 72 draws air through the apparatus which carries metal particles in an air-carrying stream from the source apparatus 28 which operates as described for the embodiment of FIG. , the device 12 and then the cyclone separator 74 .

Fan 72 may be replaced by any other convenient suction device capable of drawing air from source device 28 into the device and transporting metal particles in the form of an air carrier stream.

Similarly, cyclone separator 74 may be replaced by any convenient air/solids separator.

Thus, the embodiment of FIG. 3, as with the embodiment of FIG. Advantageously, this avoids potential deterioration of the metal plating material and the fan due to metal particles passing through the fan.

FIG. 4 shows a variation of the embodiment of FIG. 3 similar to the variation of the embodiment of FIG. 1 previously described.

In this variant, the heavy class tube 76 is connected directly to the air intake 38 .

A sensing device 80 of any convenient configuration is provided in the supply line 42 to determine the amount of metal particles passing through the device.

The sensed signal controls the operation of motor 36 and thus the amount of fresh particulate material entering supply line 42 .

FIG. 5 shows an alternative metallization device 12 that can be used with the embodiments of FIGS. 1-4.

Guide rings 82 , 84 , 86 forming a flow path for the paper strip 10 passing through the device 12 .

It has 88.

The flow path initially runs vertically downward from the inlet slit 14 and then vertically upwardly until the outlet slit 16.

A first discharge pipe 18 is disposed in a downward flow path near the paper strip 10, and a second discharge pipe 20, if used,
It is arranged vertically below the discharge pipe 18 of.

Although the application of metal particles is shown to occur as the paper strip 10 passes vertically downward through the apparatus 12, the discharge tube 18,20 is positioned near the paper strip moving vertically upward. You can also do that.

A particularly preferred plating device 12 is shown in FIGS. 6 and 7.

The device 12 shown in FIGS. 6 and 7 is in the form of an elongated hollow tubular member 90, the ends of which are sealed, with a paper strip 10 passing axially through the tube near the side wall 91. The ink faces the printed side or the inside of the tube wall.

A tangential inlet tube 92 is provided at one end of tube 90 and
0 is provided with a tangential outlet tube 94 at the other end.

The tangential artificial pipe 92 is connected to the supply pipe 42 and the tangential outlet pipe 94 is connected to the return pipe 52.

By supplying air-borne metal particles tangentially to the cylinder 90, the metal particles flow from the artificial tube 92 to the outlet tube 94.
It flows along a helical path near the inner wall of tube 90.

In this way, when the metal particles pass through the tube 90, the paper strip 1
Engages with 0 several times.

Therefore, the same charge of metal particles can be used for gilding several successive designs of the paper strip 10 and thus circulated through the device 12 compared to the devices shown in FIGS. 1 to 5. It can reduce the dead weight of metal particles and increase the overall operating efficiency.

Beside the longitudinal edge of the paper strip 10 facing towards the helically circulating pneumatically conveyed metal particles, slightly shaped therein, a tube 9 is provided.
An elongated baffle plate 96 can be provided inside the 0.

The baffle plate 96 helps guide the metal particles onto the surface of the paper strip 10 and prevents them from passing between the paper strip 10 and the adjacent tube wall 91.

As described above, the present invention provides a metal plating operation that efficiently performs metal plating by applying air-assisted spray to metal particles in a desired pattern.

It goes without saying that modifications can be made within the scope of this invention.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a metal fitting system according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a metal fitting system according to a second embodiment of the invention, and FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a modification of the embodiment shown in FIG. 3; FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a clasp system that can be used with any of the clasp systems shown in FIGS. 1 to 4; FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view taken along line 6--6 in FIG. 7, and FIG. 7 is an alternative clasp that can be used with any of the clasp systems shown in FIGS. 1 through 4. FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the device. Explanation of main symbols: 10; paper band; 18 outlet pipe; 42; supply pipe; 52; return pipe. 20; vomit

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A method of applying finely divided metal particles to the surface of a continuous paper strip, the method comprising: A method of applying metal particles to a repetitive contour with an adhesive, the metal particles being applied by a pneumatic conveying stream, in which the metal particles are applied to the surface of a linear paper strip. A method for applying gold by conveying the metal in a substantially spiral manner. 2. A metal coating device, which includes a device that linearly stretches a paper strip and a device that applies fine metal particles to the surface of the paper strip using a flow of air conveyance, and the coating device 12 is composed of an elongated cylindrical member 90. , both ends of which are sealed and an inlet 92
and an outlet 94 is provided tangentially to the inner wall of the cylindrical member near its ends so that the finely divided particles flow generally helically along the inner wall of the cylindrical member from one end of the cylinder to the other. A metal fitting device in which the paper strip passage extends linearly through the cylindrical member near its inner wall. 3. In the apparatus as claimed in claim 2, the paper strip passageway includes an elongated baffle plate 96 provided on the inside of the cylindrical member, slightly shaped therein near the longitudinal edge of the paper strip. A plating device which is adapted to guide the particles across the surface of the paper strip facing the particles which circulate in a helical form.