Smoking is and remains a costly habit. In order keep this pleasure (or addiction) affordable in future, an increasing number of smokers are using cigarette tamping machines. Via various suppliers to the cigarette industry, the owner-run company Homberg GmbH Kunst-stofftechnik/Formenbau in Ludenscheid, Germany, has offered a range of tamping and rolling machines (Fig. 1) to the international market for many years. However, all the machines have a weak spot: Until now, the tobacco tamper was made of POM, with a surface that assists tobacco transport. If the tamper breaks due to excessively fast or incorrect operation (Fig. 2), the machine had to be scrapped and disposed of correctly - it is not possible to repair the POM component.
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