Woolen card. Condenser end
Back Washing
The Card
The carding machine is somewhat similar to that used for cotton (see page [22]). The wool is automatically fed between the feed rollers, which revolve in opposite directions and are armed with heavy teeth. From the feed a roller known as the licker-in starts the wool on its course over a number of cylinders, each of which is surrounded by several toothed rollers known as workers. Each worker has a smaller companion roller, revolving at a higher speed, which derives its name of stripper from the fact that its function is to take the wool off the worker and deliver it to the next worker. The last roller, known as the fancy, raises the wool off the cylinder to be caught by the doffer. The doffing-comb lifts the wool in a filmy sheet of fibres, which is condensed into a thick untwisted rope by passing through a funnel on to the balling-head. This rope, which is about an inch and a half in diameter, is known as a sliver. A certain length of it is automatically rolled into balls and these are taken into the back-wash room. From a loose unrelated mass the wool has now been transformed into a continuous strand of more or less uniform diameter.
Gilling before combing
3. Backwashing and Gilling
A back-wash machine takes several of the carded slivers and combines them into one. The slivers pass through several baths which rinse them thoroughly and are then slowly drawn through a drier. The process is quite similar to scouring, except that it is very much less violent.
Combining and Drawing Slivers