carding-machine

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A machine for carding fibers of wool, flax, or cotton, preparatory to drawing and spinning. In the earlier carding-machines the fibers were fed by hand to a cylinder upon which card-clothing was laid iii strips parallel to the axis, and were removed from these strips by hand as they became full. In modern cotton-carding machines a loose roll of fibers, called a lap, is placed in guides and rests upon a roller, which as it revolves unwinds the lap and delivers it to the feed-roll, on passing through which it is seized by the card-teeth upon a small cylinder, called the licker-in, from which it is drawn by the teeth of the clothing of the main cylinder. Other small cylinders successively remove the fibers from and deliver them to the main cylinder. The tufts, tangles, or knots which are not loosened by the action of these cylinders project beyond the teeth of the main cylinder, and are caught by the teeth of a succession of wooden slats called card-tops, top-cards, or top-flats, from which they are cleared or stripped by hand or by mechanical devices. The fibers upon the main cylinder are laid parallel upon it, and are removed by means of the doffer, a cylinder moving in an opposite direction from the main cylinder and at a very much slower rate, and whose whole surface is covered by card-clothing. The cotton is stripped from the doffer in a thin continuous sheet of its full width, by means of a comb vibrating vertically in contact with the teeth of the doffer. This sheet of fibers is drawn together into a ribbon, traverses a funnel or trumpet, and is passed between successive pairs of rolls, which draw out and condense the sliver, and finally deliver it into the can ready for the drawing-frame, where it is doubled and drawn preparatory to twisting or spinning. For fine work, the operation of carding is repeated. The preparatory card or cards are called breakers, and those machines on which the carding is completed are called finishers. The principle of the wool-carding machine is identical with that of the cotton-carding machine, and it is chiefly distinguished from the latter by a great number of small cylinders called urchins, which work in pairs and are called workers and cleaners. The worker is the larger of the two; it strips the wool from the large main cylinder, and is itself cleaned by the smaller cylinder or cleaner, which delivers the wool back to the main cylinder, when it is again seized by the next, worker. Wool-fibers are oiled to facilitate carding and to prevent felting.