Carding and Combing

in the manufacture of textiles, processes employed to prepare raw cotton, wool, silk, etc., for spinning. The terms are often used synonymously, and the two processes are closely related, combing being a continuation of the carding principle. Carding opens up or loosens the raw material, pulling fiber from fiber, tearing apart any that are matted and leaving the mass loose, free, and soft. Combing extracts from this mass short and broken fibers, and lays the long fibers in a parallel position. Both processes help to free the fiber from small foreign litter, broken leaves, stems, sand, etc. It is evident that material of very short fiber, like American cotton, the fibers of which are less than an inch in length, cannot be combed successfully, but that the process of combing, when it can be employed, produces a smoother and stronger yarn than that made by carding alone. A description of the implements used formerly in hand carding and combing may serve to make clear the distinction in the two processes.

The hand method of carding is still used by housewives to prepare small quantities of wool for domestic purposes, or to renovate wool which has become matted by use. Two "cards" are used. These are simply oblong pieces of wood set with short iron teeth, as a brush is set with bristles, and furnished with handles. One card is held in the left hand with teeth uppermost. A quantity of cleaned and scoured wool is placed on this card. The other card, held in the right hand, is drawn over the wool gently. This process is repeated over and over until the mass is torn up and blended and distributed evenly over the cards. The wool is then lifted from the card and is shaped gently in the hands into a loose roll ready for spinning.

In combing by hand two "combs" are used. These are strips of wood furnished with handles and set with two rows of long steel teeth or spikes. The workman attaches one of his combs, teeth outward, to a comb-post. He then seizes a handful of the wool, which is warmed and oiled, and draws it through the comb, leaving a portion caught in the teeth. In this way he fills both combs with fiber. Then, holding one comb in his left hand, he takes the other in his right, and combs out the entangled fibers, first those near the tips of the teeth, gradually working deeper and deeper into the mass. At the last the teeth are worked close up to each other. If one possesses the skill and "knack" for this work, the result is the extraction of short fibers and the laying of longer ones in a comparatively parallel position. Machinery is now in use to perform both processes of carding and combing.

Wool is always carded. It is combed only when it is to be spun into "worsted" yarns. In this process the laying of the fiber in a parallel position is called frequently "gilling," the word "combing" having reference to the removal of short fibers. The machine employed is intricate and delicate. Formerly cotton was spun without either carding or combing. At present it is carded usually, but for ordinary purposes a sufficiently good quality of yarn is produced without the additional process of combing.

Three distinct operations are included under carding. Opening, that is, loosening up the masses of fiber and removing heavy impurities; scutching, which still further cleanses the fiber and spreads it into a wide "lap"; and carding proper, which continues the opening process until the fibers are separated one from the other, removes many short, unripe, and broken fibers, together with fine sand and other foreign particles, and finally reduces the lap or sheet to a loose, soft, continuous rope, called a "silver." This is regarded as one of the most beautiful processes that can be seen in a mill or factory. One yard of the "lap" from the scutcher weighs about one hundred times as much as does the "silver" into which it is made in the carding machine. Some idea of the cotton carding machine may be had from the statement that a cylinder of this machine, forty inches wide and fifty inches in diameter, bears over 3,000,000 teeth.

For sewing and machine thread, fine hosiery, lace curtains, imitation silks, and certain fine cotton fabrics, the combing of the fiber is considered essential. Sea-island and brown Egyptian cotton are classed as long-stapled, because the fiber is sufficiently long to admit of combing. No machine in cotton spinning adds one-half as much to the expense of producing the yarns as does the comber. One reason for this is the fact that the comber makes about seventeen per cent of waste, which is as much as the combined waste of all the other machines in the mill.

In the manufacture of silk textiles, the "reel" silk needs no carding or combing. The "spun" or waste silk is carded and combed by processes resembling those used in carding cotton. In preparing flax for spinning, the process which corresponds with carding and combing is called hackling.