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 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 the inventor of these improvements, but it was Arkwright who, in 1775, first patented these ideas. His comb and crank (see fig. 6) provided a mechanical means by which the carded fibers could be removed from the cylinder. With this, the cylinder card became a practical machine. Arkwright continued the modification of the doffing end by drawing the carded fibers through a funnel and then passing them through two rollers. This produced a continuous sliver, a narrow ribbon of fibers ready to be spun into yarn. However, it was soon realized that the bulk characteristic desired in woolen yarns (but not desired in the compact types such as worsted yarns or cotton yarns) required that the wool be carded in a machine that would help produce this.
Figure 7.—Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1796, an Engraving From John J. Currier's History of Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1764–1909, vol. 2, Newburyport, 1906–09.