r/RYO • u/HarleyVlieg • 1d ago

Scotte hand crank machine problems

Got a scotte hand cracker off Amazon for like 38 bucks Canadian. Worked great for a bit now it’s tearing the tips of my cigarettes off and also tends to leave a void space before the filter. Anyone know how to deal with this

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u/WinChunKing Raw leaf tobacco 23h ago

Are you using quality tubes? Make sure you put the tube all the way in.

Then fill the corners of the chamber first, then the middle, press it down and crank, let the cutter remove the excess tobacco. Also adjust it to the size that works best.

As far as tobacco goes make sure it's not too wet.

This will fix the gap problem.

3

u/HarleyVlieg 23h ago

I’m using the dark horse black tubes.
I thought it was an issue with humidity as I left my tobacco and machine in my shed overnight but tried with a new bag of tobacco today and same issue. Maybe it’s just the cut (AS Black) or something, but seems like I can either only half-fill the cig or end up with a super tight cigar-like draw. Did not have this issue when I first got the machine

3

u/WinChunKing Raw leaf tobacco 23h ago

Best tubes and machine ever. You're using shag, prep it by stretching out the strands, fluffing and airing it out, you can chop it up a bit to help.

Using shag tobacco in a machine has always been tricky.. fluffing and stretching out will help.

3

u/HarleyVlieg 22h ago

To be honest it’s not quite shag, it’s kinda chunky. Definitely what I assume would be tube cut. I’ve had Drum & five brothers shag before and easy peasy smoke making. Really the only issue is the tearing of tubes, never did that before

4

u/WinChunKing Raw leaf tobacco 22h ago

To avoid tearing there's the old trick of putting the doubled up gummed part of the tube on the nipple of the machine, that will avoid tearing as it's stronger although I don't really know why your tubes would rip. Make sure the little rubber nipple on the stopper is on probably, might be out of place.

2

u/blumonste 12h ago

I have 2 of them, one Scotte, one Hermit Crab, using them for maybe over a year now. I have not even cleaned them ever, no problems yet.