New Top-O-Matic Cigarette Rolling Machine

I just bought this Top-O-Matic machine and rolled my first pack of cigarettes this morning. It's easy to use with almost no learning curve and it works great. As expensive as cigarettes have become, don't know why I never looked into rolling my own before now. Obviously, the main reason why most people consider RYO cigarettes is the cost savings and it is significant, but there are other benefits as well. First, you can get much higher quality tobacco with no additives or chemicals and minimal processing. There are numerous brands and varieties of tobacco available and with a little experimentation, you can even create your own blends by mixing different tobaccos to get the exact flavor you like. This machine is designed to work with either king or 100 mm filter tubes, so all you have to do is select the size you prefer, insert a tube onto the fitting on the side of the machine, load the chamber with tobacco, then pull down on the lever to automatically roll the cigarette and eject it from the machine. Switching sizes is fast and easy. There's a small plate with a thumb screw which is inserted for king sized cigarettes. To make 100's, you simply loosen the thumb screw and remove the plate. There are several YouTube videos demonstrating use of the machine. I watched a couple of them before starting my first pack and had no problem at all using the machine. I had a couple of concerns that turned out to be unfounded. First, I wasn't certain how difficult it would be to pack the tobacco correctly so the cigarette didn't have gaps or voids, or conversely over-packed which makes it difficult to pull down the lever to roll the cigarette and also makes the cigarette hard to draw properly. It turns out that packing the tobacco to the correct density is almost instinctive. Tobacco is fairly springy, so unless you really apply excess force it's hard to over-pack it. I had a couple of cigarettes in my first batch with small voids in them. due to under-packing. Initially, when I tried to tamp them down to fill the voids, it didn't work but all I had to do was to roll the cigarettes gently between my fingers to loosen the tobacco slightly, then tap the filter end against the table a few times to tamp the tobacco properly, ending up with a little left over paper at the open end which burned away immediately when I lit the cigarettes. After some internet research, I decided to buy a couple of different tobaccos to start out with. The ones I chose were both made by D&R tobacco, which seemed to have the highest ratings from RYO smokers. I bought mine online from Nationalcigar.com. The blends I chose were their Windsail Platinum and their Vengeur Platinum, both priced at $24.50 per pound. There are much cheaper tobaccos available but even the best tobaccos are so much cheaper than buying cigarettes by the pack that I decided to start out with one of the top rated brands. I also bought three different filter tubes to see which ones I liked - Zen Blue 100's and Zen Blue Kings, and D&R Windsail Elite 100's. I haven't tried the kings yet, but both of the two 100's are fine. I have a slight preference for the Windsails. Although the filters are the same length, the Windsail filters are noticeably denser, taking a little more effort to draw. They seem to filter better and produce a smoother, milder taste. Almost all RYO tobacco is sold as "pipe" tobacco to avoid the higher taxes on cigarette tobacco but work fine for rolling cigarettes in the Top-O-Matic machines. In fact, one of the YouTube reviewers commented that "cigarette" cut tobaccos don't work as well in the machine as pipe cut tobacco. At any rate, I love the Windsail Platinum, coupled with the Windsail 100 mm filter tubes. It produces a light, smooth smoke with no harshness but plenty of flavor, much better than any of the store-bought cigarettes I've smoked. I generally smoke Marlboro Light 100's and these are better in my opinion than the Marlboros, at less than 1/3 the cost. For reference, you should get about 2 1/2 cartons of kings per pound of tobacco or about 2 cartons of 100's. Thus, at $24.50 a pound, the tobacco cost works out to about $10 to $15 per carton, depending on which tobacco you buy and whether you're rolling kings or 100's. The filter tubes will cost an additional $2.50 to $4.00 per carton, so your total cost per carton will run no more than $15 to $20 per carton, perhaps less. It took me about 1/2 hour to roll my first pack because I was still figuring out how to use the machine. I think with practice I should be able to roll a full carton in about the same amount of time. UPDATE: 1/11/17 - I've been using the machine for several days and have made a couple of cartons of cigarettes (about 15 packs, actually) for myself and friends. Although I'm not an expert yet, I've learned a few things that may be helpful to other newbies. First, the process can be a little messy and clean up is much easier if you use some sort of tray. I found that a regular cookie sheet, which I already had on hand, works great. I use a small brush to clean the machine after each use. I've found that I prefer using the 100 mm filter tubes, even if I'm rolling kings, as further explained below. The Zen Blue 100's are cheaper than the Windsail Elite 100's and both are fine. One thing that bothered me at first is that if you pack the tube fully, you end up with excess tobacco extending out from the open end of the cigarette, which will either fall out and make a mess or, even worse, fall out after lighting it and burn your clothes, etc. The easy solution is to pinch out the excess with your fingers or cut off the excess with scissors, then tamp the cigarette by tapping the filter against a tabletop. However, I accidentally found a much easier way to solve the problem. What happened is that I'd been making king-sized cigarettes and switched to 100's but forgot to remove the sizing plate, so I was using 100 mm tubes with the machine set for making kings. The tobacco almost fills the tube but never overflows from the open end. This has now become my standard way of rolling my cigarettes. The 100 mm tubes are more expensive but are still cheap so I don't mind. Also, I've found that my 100's burn almost twice as long as packaged 100's, so I usually only smoke 1/2 a cigarette at a time. I've filled an ashtray with clean cat litter and it works great for extinguishing a cigarette without crushing the end so it's easy to re-light and smoke the remaining half later. Of the two D&R tobacco's I've purchased, I prefer the Vengeur Platinum. It seems to have a richer flavor than Windsail Platinum but is still very smooth and mild. I may try some other tobaccos and filter tubes in the future but I'm very satisfied with my initial choice and may not even try others. My cost is working out to about $13 per carton using a premium tobacco and 100 mm filter tubes, including shipping. If low cost was my primary objective, I could buy "value-priced" tobacco and king size filter tubes and bring the cost down to well under $10 per carton.

This is the machine anyone should go with. It makes cigarettes so easy and the machine works great! I have one and both my Sisters have one. Great machine and great price Would definitely buy again

This machine works great! The Top-O-Matic is very well made, seems to be less prone to mechanical failure than any other model out there. With practice, you can make smokes similar in appearance, smokability, and pack as commercial grade smokes without paying outrageous tax penalty and being subjected to the added chemicals and carpet glue, and having the satisfaction of smoking your own personal blend. I have a few pointers for you. 1- Do not overpack the chamber. This causes jamming, not only of the machine, but in the tube as well, forcing the tube off the holder prematurely and leaving the area near the filter unfilled. 2- Keep the machine on a table that is about elbow-level. This body positioning keeps you from pressing downward instead of towards you. The lever that has a plastic bushing that can sometimes crack and break from this downward pressure. Having it on the floor for example makes you tend to put too much body weight on the handle, so avoid that. Another reason is that it sort of keeps you from stuffing the chamber too full. Push the tobacco in by laying your fingers OVER the top of the chamber, NOT by poking your fingers IN, which is easier to do when you are leaning over it. Poking the tobacco in the chamber will tend to an overfill, and no tobacco near the filter. 3- Toss your tobacco. Usually at the beginning of a session I had several smokes that did not fill to filter. At first, I thought I had "lost my touch" on how to fill the chamber because toward the end of the session and the bottom of my tobacco pouch I was getting perfect smokes every time. I am convinced now that this was not the problem. The problem was that the "fluffy" or "bulky" tobacco was on the top of the pouch, while the finer tobacco was near the bottom. You can either toss the tobacco in a bowl on occasion to get a consistent texture, or find a way to chop up the bulkier wider cut stuff on top. 4- I am starting to pack my king-size tubes with it set in the 100mm setting. I fill the chamber very lightly, and the result is that you have a smoke with a "hairy-top", but I trim that off with scissors, then tamp it. the result is a commercial grade looking smoke. If I leave it at king size there is usually a 1/8" gap at the tip that some people just crimp over. It all depends on the cut of the tobacco you are using I guess. I am currently using OHM brand "dual-purpose" turkish yellow tobacco. These pointers should help you make nice looking, good smoking cigarettes that are worthy of putting in that fancy chrome cigarette case you may have. In my opinion if you are a store bought 100s smoker, keep in mind that your homemade cigarettes will be packed tighter than store bought, and filled with REAL tobacco. Your store bought 5-minute smoke turns into a 10-minute smoke. But some people like the appearance of smoking a 100 I guess. Commercial smokes are 50% actual tobacco that has been treated with additives, 20% is CO2 expanded (puffed like your rice crispies), stems, floor sweepings, and reclaim (re-used stale tobacco that did not sell), and the remaining 30% is paper sprayed with tobacco juice, mixed with all the other thousands of additives called "mother liquor". This does not include the salt peter and the carpet glue in the paper of FSC (Fire Safe Cigarettes). My point being, would you rather smoke a REAL cigarette, or a treated, 50% fake cigarette that burns up in 5 minutes, given you can even keep it lit with the carpet glue in there? Hope this helps! B.

This makes really good cigarettes. I got this because my Powermatic 2 jammed and I had to send it back for repairs, so I figured I could get this as a backup in case it happens again, and I wanted to check out if it made better cigarettes. In the end, the ones from the Powermatic and this are close, but I would say this makes a little tighter cigarette. It did jam on me when I was rolling my first one, so be careful packing it for your first few until you get an idea of how much tobacco it can take. My big complaint is that it is really messy. My Powermatic 2 has this nice compartment on top that keeps the tobacco from going everywhere. Unfortunately, this machine doesn't have anything like that, so the tobacco gets all over. Might not be a big deal for someone who can use a big tray or something, but I have limited space in my apartment and I don't really have a place to set that up. Also, the warranty is a little lame, and this seller offers no returns. You have to send in a picture ID, your receipt and the warranty card within 30 days. Then, if you need it repaired, you need to send along a check for $12.50 for them to send it back to you. The Powermatic repair was shipped back to me for free, and I didn't have to register. All in all, I'd recommend the Powermatic 2 over this machine for the reasons stated above. However, like this one, you need to be careful with it. Definitely don't put in the fine tobacco from the bottom of the bag. It will jam, as will the Powermatic. Instead, mix that back in with your next bag.

This Top O'matic cigarette rolling machine it is, indeed, Top number 1. Very easy to use, very resistant. Is a play game to make me now my own cigarettes. I am happy with it and I recommend it.

I dont use it like crazy but works like a hot dang

This is a good working machine but it can be improved by adding a tray on top to hold enough tobacco to make about twenty cigarettes at a time . I made one out of a small plastic box and taped it in place just above the slot for holding tobacco and it works good.

Easy to use. End product was better than expected. Delivery was sooner than projected

great machine very easy to use