Rotary Screw Type Circling Machine Head for Automatic Scrapping and Rubbing of Cinnamon Sticks

There are several shortcomings in mechanization of cinnamon processing steps due to biological variability of cinnamon sticks such as uneven stem sizes and shape, different sizes of knots, coarseness of outer corky layer and uneven bark thickness within and between sticks. Moreover, the mechanical force required is vary on seasonal basis within the sticks even within same plantation. When a cinnamon stick is applied an external force for automatic processing, a backward and forward reactive forces between the tool and the sticks are generated when the tool reach section irregularities. These reactive shock waves impose unnecessary damage to the economically important peel of cinnamon. Therefore, we constructed our new device to absorb these unnecessary reactive forces by its operating spindles allowing only the required amount of force being applied into the cinnamon peel when processing. Hence the mechanical damages are reduced significantly with this new design. Both cinnamon processing events, scrapping of outer corky layer and rubbing of inner bark can be performed automatically at one time by cycling the newly developed screw head (thread bar) processing spindle and spring head (rubber mounted spring) processing spindle around the cinnamon stick.