An apparatus for use in the manufacture of tobacco industry products (TIPs), including a rotatable drum having a plurality of flutes formed in a curved outer surface of the drum to receive axially-aligned components of a TIP, a roll hand having a contact surface facing and spaced from the outer surface of the drum to define a space, between the contact surface and the outer surface, within which space components of a TIP are rollable upon rotation of the drum, and a kicker bar disposed adjacent to the roll hand and having a contact edge facing and spaced from the outer surface of the drum, where at least one of the roll hand contact surface, kicker bar contact edge and drum outer surface includes a groove extending in a substantially circumferential direction of the drum and configured to least partially receive one or more of the TIP components as the drum rotates.

A drum assembly for processing a moving web of material is disclosed. The drum assembly has an outer drum with an axis of rotation and a plurality of support members on which cut patches of the moving web of material are supported as the drum rotates together with said support members about said axis. A cam is disposed within the outer drum and the support members and the cam cooperate with each other as the outer drum rotates relative to the cam to move the support members in an axial direction to alter the spacing between cut web patches on said support members.

Apparatus comprising a tipping paper suction drum (10) adapted to receive a web (13) of tipping paper which is cut on the tipping paper suction drum to form successive patches (8) of tipping paper for wrapping smoking articles. The tipping paper suction drum is adapted to rotate at a speed greater than the speed at which the web of tipping paper is fed onto the tipping paper suction drum such that spaces are formed between the cut patches of tipping paper. A peripheral surface (14) of the tipping paper suction drum has suction holes (16) arranged to pull the leading portion of the web of tipping paper towards the surface of the tipping paper suction drum in the time between successive cuts.

A smoking article assembly apparatus is disclosed. It comprises a first cutting station configured to cut a filter rod into filter segments, a tipping station configured to join the filter segments to tobacco rods so as to form a smoking article assembly, and a second cutting station configured to cut the smoking article assembly in the region of the filter segments so as to form two smoking articles.

A method of manufacturing smoking articles including supplying a smoking article manufacturing machine with dual length filter rods, each dual length filter rod containing a first and a second type of capsule, using the machine to cut patches of tipping paper from a web, using the machine to wrap one of the patches about each dual length filter, and using the machine to cut each wrapped dual length filter rod to form first and second smoking articles, each having first and second filter rod segments, where the first filter rod segment includes the first type of capsule and the second filter rod segment includes the second type of capsule, where the web includes first and second lateral portions, the first lateral portion having different visual or tactile mark or indicia than the second lateral portion.