Development of Cigarette Drawing Line Technique

Source from:  TobaccoChina Online-05/23/2000 05/23/2000

The technique of a drawing line around a pack of cigarettes has made great progress since its first use. Looking at the surface, it is a piece of paper strip around a cigarette case. With the drawing line, a cigarette case does not need to be packed tightly with a piece of plastic sheet. In fact, it is a technical creation. Many functions should be considered in the development of a paper strip. First of all, it should be pasted on the cellophane outer cover package paper to pack the cigarette case. The end of the drawing line should be placed outside the plastic film to play its role. The producer must carefully make the base materials for a drawing line and a binder to ensure the materials to keep along the prints of the package film and the thin paper cigarette case. One of the materials used for making drawing lines at the first was polyester, which is not ideal in the utilization because it is easy to be extended or broken. Such material is still used widely in East Asia. Polypropylene began to be used for drawing lines in the 1980s and is regarded as the best material so far. The molecular structure of such material has different efficiency if it is fixed in different directions. The molecular structure of the biaxially oriented polypropylene may reach the purpose of intensity and hardness. In 1983, a British company developed a Supastrip brand drawing line with uniaxially oriented polypropylene as the raw material. According to the company, such material can resist against the extension and crack. Enditem