Cigarette tray construction

1,157,172. Cigarette trays; packaging cigarettes. MOLINS ORGANISATION Ltd. 21 Sept., 1966 [28 Sept., 1965], No. 42141/66. Headings B8C and B8D. A tray for carrying elongated articles, e.g. cigarettes or filter rods, has fixed metal end walls 13, 14 and side wall 12, a movable base 11, and a side which may be partially or wholly closed by a cover-plate 40 mounted on end plates 41, 42 which form part of a guide and operating assembly 43, Fig. 2, whereby the cover-plate 40 may be pivoted up and over the top of the tray, which is open, to a position against the side wall 12 (as shown in interrupted lines on the right hand side of Fig. 2). A pin 61 on an extension 60 of each end plate engages a slot 62 formed in each end wall 13, 14 to further guide the plate 40. A self-centring latch pin (65), Fig. 4 (not shown), on the extension 60 seats in an aperture (66) in a strap 54 to retain the plate 40 in position across the open side of the tray. The tray has a handle 17 for lifting by means of a conveyer when transporting the tray, e.g. from a cigarette filling machine, and further handles 20, 21 for lifting the tray by hand. Feet 25, 26 have bosses 27, 28 for engaging a part of a filling machine. The base 11 comprises a plate 31 held by pins 32, 33 in a slot 30 in each of the feet 25, 26 and movable manually by raising the right-hand end of the plate in the slot 30 (as seen in Fig. 1) to slide it sideways and release the cigarettes, e.g. into a hopper. In a modification, a pinion (70), Fig. 6 (not shown), on the assembly 43 may be engaged by a rack (73) mounted on cigarette filling apparatus to raise the cover-plate 40 automatically as the tray enters the apparatus. The drive is carried through a sun gear (75) and train of planet gears (76) the last of which engages a gear segment (77) on the extension 60. On withdrawing the tray, the cover-plate is returned. Again, the cover-plate 40 may be mounted on end plates (80) having U-shaped flanges (82), Figs. 7-8 (not shown) each provided with a track (84) engaged by a pin (83) on each of the end walls 13, 14 of the tray and thereby guiding the movement of the coverplate. The cover-plate 40 may be in multiple, Figs. 8-9 (not shown), each part (90) hinged to that adjacent and carrying a pin (91) slidable in a U-shaped track (92).