THE SCHOLFIELD
WOOL-CARDING
MACHINES

Carding is the necessary preliminary step by which individual short fibers of wool or cotton are separated and cleaned of foreign materials so they can be spun into yarn. The thoroughness of the carding determines the quality of the yarn, while the position in which the carded fibers are laid determines its type. The fibers are laid parallel in order to spin a smooth compact yarn, or they are crossed and intermingled to produce a soft bulky yarn.

Primitive Carding

The earliest method of carding wool was probably one in which, by use of the fingers alone, the tufts were pulled apart, the foreign particles loosened and extracted, and the fibers blended. Fuller's teasels (thistles with hooked points, Dispasacus fullonum), now better known for raising the nap on woven woolens, were also used at a very early date for carding. The teasels were mounted on a pair of small rectangular frames with handles; and from this device developed the familiar small hand card (see fig. 2), measuring about 8 inches by 5 inches, in which card clothing (wire teeth embedded in leather) was mounted on a board with the wire teeth bent and angled toward the handle. The wool was placed on one card and a second card was dragged across it, the two hands pulling away from each other. This action separated the fibers and laid them parallel to the handle, in a thin film. After the fibers had been carded in this way several times, the cards were turned so that the handles were together and once again they were pulled across each other. With the wire teeth now angled in the same direction, the action rolled the carded fibers into a sliver (a loose roll of untwisted fibers) that was the length of the hand card and about the diameter of the finger. This placed the wool fibers crosswise in relation to the length of the sliver, their best position for spinning.[1] Until the mid-18th century hand cards were the only type of implement available for carding.

Figure 2.—Hand Cards "Used on Plantation of Mary C. Purvis," Nelson County, Virginia, during early 1800's and now in U.S. National Museum (cat. no. T2848; Smithsonian photo 37258).

Figure 3.—The First Machine in Lewis Paul's British Patent 636, Issued August 30, 1748. The treadle move the card-covered board B₁, in a horizontal direction as necessary to perform the carding operation. With the aid of the needlestick the fibers were removed separately from each of the 16 cards N. The carded fibers were placed on a narrow cloth band, which unrolled from the small cylinder G, on the left, and was rolled up with the fibers on the cylinder I, at the right.

First Mechanical Cards

The earliest mechanical device for carding fibers was invented by Lewis Paul in England in 1738 but not patented until August 30, 1748. The patent described two machines. The first, and less important, machine consisted of 16 narrow cards mounted on a board; a single card held in the hand performed the actual carding operation (see fig. 3). The second machine utilized a horizontal cylinder covered with parallel rows of card clothing. Under the cylinder was a concave frame lined with similar card clothing. As the cylinder was turned, the cards on it worked against those on the concave frame, separating and straightening the fibers (see fig. 4). After the fibers were carded, the concave section was lowered and the fibers were stripped off by hand with a needle stick, an implement resembling a comb with very fine needlelike metal teeth. Though his machine was far from perfect. Lewis Paul had invented the carding cylinder working with stationary cards and the stripping comb.

Figure 4.—The Patent Description of Paul's Second Machine suggested that the fibers be carded by a cylinder action, but be removed in the same manner as directed in the first patent.

Figure 5.—Illustrations From British Patent 628, Issued January 20, 1748, to Daniel Bourn for a roller card machine.

Figure 6.—The Most Important Single Feature Illustrated in Richard Arkwright's British patent 1111 of December 16, 1775, provided "a crank and a frame of iron with teeth" to remove the carded fibers from the cylinder.

Another important British patent was granted in 1748 to Daniel Bourn, who invented a machine with four carding rollers set close together, the first of the roller-card type (see fig. 5). To produce a practical carding machine, however, several additional mechanical improvements were necessary. The first of these did not appear until more than two decades later, in 1772, when John Lees of Manchester is reported to have invented a machine featuring "a perpetual revolving cloth, called a feeder," that fed the fibers into the machine.[2] Shortly afterward, the stripper rollers[3] and the doffer comb[4] (a mechanical utilization of Paul's hand device) were added. Both James Hargreaves and Richard Arkwright claimed to be