Carding

Brushing Fibres Into Alignment

Carding is a preparation process, and its purpose is order. Raw fibre arrives tangled, matted and mixed, with individual fibres pointing in every direction and short fibres, debris and clumps caught among them. Carding is the processing of that raw fibre by brushing it, and the brushing separates the fibres from each other and draws them toward a common direction, until all the fibres in a bunch are going in the same direction. Only fibre in that opened, aligned state can be drawn out and twisted evenly in spinning, so carding stands between the raw material and the yarn. It is used for cotton, wool and bast fibres, the staple fibres that are spun from short, separate lengths rather than drawn from a continuous filament.

Hand carding shows the action in its simplest form. Hand carders are like dog brushes, flat paddles covered with fine teeth, and they are used two at a time. A bunch of wool is placed on one carder and brushed with the other, the fibre being worked back and forth between the two until it is separated and aligned. The teeth of the two carders catch, pull and release the fibres repeatedly, and each pass removes a little more tangling and brings a little more alignment. Working by hand is slow and suited to small quantities, for home spinning and craft use, but it performs exactly the same task as the machine: it turns a disordered handful of raw wool into an opened, parallel preparation ready for the next stage.

Machine Carding and the Road to Spinning

Machine carding performs the same brushing at production scale, with brushes on a drum. Separated fibres are fed into the machine, picked up and brushed onto either so-called flats, in the case of cotton, or several more drums, in the case of wool, and then removed. The revolving drum, covered in fine teeth, carries the fibre forward and works it against the flats or the additional drums, and that repeated working between toothed surfaces opens the fibre, removes much of what should not be spun, and aligns the fibres far more uniformly than hand work can. The difference between the cotton and wool arrangements reflects the fibres themselves: cotton carding uses flats over the drum, while wool carding passes the fibre across a series of drums, each stage opening and aligning it further.

The product of carding is not yet yarn. It can be used for spinning after some more treatment, which places carding correctly in the sequence of textile production: cleaning and opening the raw fibre, carding it into alignment, then further preparation and finally spinning. Carding is closely related to combing, and the two are often compared: both align fibres before spinning, but they are distinct processes with different equipment and results, and learning about combing fibres completes the picture of fibre preparation. Recognising carding in any description comes down to the brushing test: fibre worked between toothed surfaces, by hand carders used two at a time or by brushes on a drum, until separated fibres lie in the same direction, ready to be spun. Without that alignment the spinner would be working with a tangled mass that drafts unevenly and breaks, which is why carding, though it produces no finished cloth and no yarn by itself, is one of the essential steps on which even spinning depends.