Well I just watched a shit ton of videos and went down a rabbit hole as it's 1:30am. I'm so lost on all of this. The basics seem straight away, but every cutter does some crazy technique for the cap, then the last cap seems pretty simple. Bunching doesn't look too bad, but how do you bunch for a 46 gauge? 50 gauge? 42 gauge? etc.....
Looks like a press is pretty important and that cutter they all use that looks like a three hole punchers. What are you home rollers using in place of that?
Got lots more to learn tomorrow, but now I need to go to bed. sore as shit from hockey and now my brain hurts!
Talk to you guys tomorrow
Yeah, I don't recommend that "watch all the videos" approach
at all. Learn by doing. Your hands are smarter than you give them credit for. Keep it simple. Most all these videos, there's a guy been rolling six days a week ten hours a day for thirty years, has to pop out fifty gars an hour to keep a tin roof over his brood's head. He goes zip zap blip and done. Your eyes haven't even focussed and he's on to the next one.
Instead: Try these simple instructions adapted from what I wrote for Mossome in the thread "lookin for lurkers". Don't even read them in advance. Just print them out, set them beside you, lay out your leaves, and set to work. Read one step; do it; read the next step.
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Buy your starter blend from WholeLeafTobacco.
You've got a wee baggie with a dash of white powder in it. Don't snort that white power. First thing you do, put a tablespoon of water in the smallest jar you've got round the house, stir up the powder, and let it set overnight. That's your glue. That stuff resists complete mixing; but the wee white boogers you can't get to mix, they will dissolve overnight.
Score a spritzer bottle round the house and fill it with water. Score a cutting board out of the kitchen, gives you a surface to work on. Fetch a pizza cutter or better yet an ulu out of the kitchen drawer. No, a knife won't work. Neither will scissors.
You've got diff kinds of filler here. Should make a good base. Already blent. Easy street. You have plenty binder. One half leaf ought to make a binder. Should really help to compact a bunch. Then you have your wrapper to make a smooth, tasty, fine colored outside. You can purpose some of the binder for wrapper if you want.
There should be enough baccy for 30 robustos easy. Do not roll jawbreaker mandingoes, cause nobody wants them, and they eat up leaves. Don't roll coronas cause they are harder to make smooth. Ordinary everyday robustos is the thing. 5" x 50rg, Grab a robusto like that out of your humidor and get a good feel for it before you start. Gauge the length of it in your palm, too. You want your bunch about an inch longer than what you have there in your hand. Two or two and a half leaves of filler should be enough for one robusto like this. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP. Feel the gar, lay it beside you, feel it again between steps. Can't hit the target without lookin long & hard at it. That's the deal.
You use your filler and binder leaves just the way they came. Your wrapper must be prepared. You take a wrapper leaf out, you spread it out a bit, you spritz both sides with a water spritzer, you put it in a bag or tupperware. Let it set an hour or two.
Now turn your attention to the bunch. So what you do is, you cut the stem out of a binder leaf using your ulu or pizza cutter. You don't slice it -- you roll the blade over the leaf to cut it. Like cutting pizza. Now you stretch out the leaf, working the wrinkles out of it, and lay it on your board. Leaf underside surface (veins more prominent) faces the ceiling. Leaf upper side (smoother) faces the table. Pointy end of the leaf toward you; stem end away. Lay it oblique so that the veins are perpendicular to you. Your outer edge of the leaf should be away from you.
Now take 2 or 2 1/2 leaves of your filler & pinch out the stems. Loosely roll a half leaf in your left hand with the pointy end going down, sticking out past your palm an inch. That's gonna be your foot. Pinch the top half leaf off where it comes up by your left thumb. That's gonna be your head. Draw the part in your right hand, the part you pinched off, down to your foot where it comes out your left palm. See? Now you have a pointy bit and a wide bit at the foot, and likewise a narrower bit and a fatter bit at the head. This ought to make things tend to stay even. Right? If there's any excess sticking out at the head, pinch that off and lay it aside. Repeat this method for each half leaf. Now feel the bunch in your palm. Got one end fatter than the other? Tuck those pinches you laid aside in between the other leaves there. Got voids elsewhere? Tuck in some pinches. Got excess sticking out? Pinch it off. Got sniggly bits? Pinch them off. Now feel your bunch. Should feel even and should have robusto bulk. If it doesn't, make it right.
You with me so far?
Feels right? Time to bind it. Lay the foot of your leaves on the closest end of your binder that you laid out. Lay these leaves parallel with the veins there. Start wrapping your binder by rolling away from you, so the binder comes up and winds round your leaves. Spread the binder leaf with your free hand from time to time as you go; but never ever let go of your bunch. Make sure your new bunch stays parallel to your binder veins. Don't let your bunch leaves twist on you! Your leaves have to rotate at the same rate as your binder wraps round them. Tighten up with your fingertips as you go. Once your binder spirals round your filler all the way to the head, pick it up, holding that head tight so your binder doesn't unroll. Give it a feel. Feel loose? You should still have enough binder to give it a second go if you want. Have some places feel like voids? Don't be afraid to unroll and lay some new pinches in there, and go binding all over again. Breaking your binder? Means you're binding too hard. Don't try to get as hard as a store stick here. Good to go? Since you don't have a mold, well, a lot of guys at this point, they will roll their bunch up in newspaper or magazine. If not, a touch of glue will hold your binder at the head. Me, I just lay the bound head under a paperweight and turn to the wrapper at this point.
Lay your damp wrapper on the cutting board folded in half along the big stem. Cut alongside the stem end to end so that you now have two big half leaves. Pick out the half leaf that's got veins oriented the same direction your binder veins went. In other words, if your binder half leaf had veins from stem to outer edge going right to left, then your wrapper leaf needs to lay likewise. Got it? Maybe someone can draw you a picture and post it here. Put the other half back in the bag. Spritz your cutting board thoroughly. Lay your wrapper on that damp board just like you laid out the binder... except you have to take the time to work out all the wrinkles you can. Especially the leaf edge needs to be stretched out. Invest the time here. Again, let it set. You could lay a damp dish towel on it and go get a snack. I like to lay my wrapper out on a one by two foot tile I scored at Home Despot for two bucks and a half, then lay my bamboo cutting board over it, at this step right here. Give it a few to relax on your board. Now uncover it, and stretch it flat as you can. Cut a straight clean edge near the leaf edge. You will need, I dunno, nine or ten inches straight cut. Cut a parallel edge maybe three inches from that. Now you have a three inch wide ribbon of wrapper. Your coarsest veins have been removed. Veins are toward the ceiling. Veins are going right to left. It lays oblique. So. Wrap.
Foot of your bunch at the foot of the leaf. Rolling away from you. Stretching the wrapper with your left hand while you roll away from you with your right. Once you get to the head, dab some glue on your wrapper, wrap the rest of the way. Snip each end with your cigar cutter. Dry off your work board. Roll your cigar on that hard surface to smooth it. No, you don't have to round the head and cap it. Get a nice straight cigar first, and worry about capping some other day. Set it aside to dry. As it dries, your wrapper will shrink and the business will tighten. Be sure to pick it up and admire it six or eight times while it dries. Demonstrate your skill to your old lady. Shrug it off when she rolls her eyes.
Take a pic and post it here.
Smoke it tomorrow.
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I'm thinking I ought to make a simple vid for simple beginners rolling quickies the easy way. Time is in short supply, but the need is there. All the vids I see, they're for guys who want to get good at it. I'm thinking a vid for a guy who wants to pop out his first stick in ten minutes total max. I'll follow just these steps, & see if it makes sense.
