Drew Estates Flying Pig rolling photos

[T.G]

Over in Stephen's (zappaFREAK) review thread of the Flying Pig, Dave (Dave128) and I ended up talking about some things regarding the rolling of these cigars, and I told Dave I would post some pictures of the procedure, but I wanted to take the discussion over to it's own thread as not to completely jack Steve's thread, so, here we go...

First off, I'd like to apologize for the quality of some of the photos - there were a number of us crammed into a very tiny walkway between benches and each of us was trying to simultaneously listen to Jonathan, smoke a cigar, not burn the BOTL next to you with your cigar, watch what was going on and take some photos.

Here is the cigar being bunched and the capote (binder) being applied. As you can see, it's really not that different from any other cigar, EXCEPT for the final step before it goes into the mold. As seen in the fourth photo, the bunchero uses a loop hook, something resembling a very thin crochet hook or loop. He will stick the loop about 1/4" into the filler and then yank it back out, which removes a bit of the tobacco leaf. He'll do this in a circular pattern just in from the edge a bit and then a few stabs in the center. He then flips the cigar over and does the head. This allows the cigar to fit into the mold and be pressed with the rounded ends.