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Cuba & Cigars - The Stripping House Packing department Here tobacco is received and it is packed by grades. The pack of binder should weigh 58 kilograms and that of filler 52 kilograms. This process consists on the elaboration of the compressed packages of leaves, called packs that are made with a hydraulic apparatus. The leaves are placed inside a square mold of approximately 1.30 m.
The box that serves as mold for making the bale is of hard wood.
The five parts that form the box two men can organize them in less than one minute, later a mobile bottom is placed, (which is retired before applying the hydraulic press), and inside the box and on the bottom before depositing the first leaves two pieces of yagua are placed that will have the width and length of the bale when finished.
The box is filled with the leaves of tobacco that arrive from the drying room in cardboard boxes, baskets or in wheelbarrows, the leaves in very similar proportions to those of the drying room are placed so that they fill each empty space, placing the stripped part of the leaves pointing out.
Once half filled, the two other pieces of the box are placed and the filling process is completed.
Then two wooden pieces are placed that serve as support to lift the box and to place it in a weight that is always very near where it is filled, the weight is proven , and if it is not completed more leaves are placed until completing the required weight.
The following step is to take the box to the hydraulic press to compress the leaves. The box has a height of approximately 140 m, and as can be appreciated in the picture it is completely full with leaves. The man that waits in the press places a sackcloth blanket on the base of it where the box will be placed.
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