The card may be of various widths, and single or double ; that is having one or more cylinders. Fig. 1451 shows a single card with the Bramwell feed attachment A on the right, and Tatham's patent balling-machine B on the left. This is another ingenious and comparatively recent invention, the function of which is to take charge of the carded material, and make it ready for the next machine. The wool is coiled or wound upon small wooden bowls or bobbins. The machine has a supply of these bowls d placed upon its top, whilst another is held between two discs e, shown between the sides of the machine. The wool comes from the doffer of the card in the form of a sliver : a soft untwisted rope, which is then carried throngh a revolving tube, the action of which imparts more cohesive power to the loose fibres, to enable the sliver to be drawn from the bowl in the next process. When the bowl between the discs is filled, the latter separate and allow it to drop out into a box, and immediately thereafter an empty bowl from those on the top is brought down and placed between the discs, which now close and hold it as before. After the discs have made a few revolutions, in order to attach the sliver to the empty bowl, the sliver hitherto unbroken from the full bowl is automatically severed, and the bowl may then, at the convenience of the attendant, be carried away. This system is highly rec,ommended where the plan of feeding the intermediate card with sliver is in use.
Having described these attachments, the card itself demands notice. As before stated, the cards may have one or more cylinders, or " swifts," as they are usually termed. When two cylinders are used, there are no important differences in the mechanism, the only alteration neces sary being that the clothing of the rollers and swift shall be finer in the second than the first. Fig. 1452 illustrates a section of a double wool-carding engine, and its introduction will serve 1452.
to show the manner of connection between the two parts, and the ordinary method of feeding the machine. They often also comprise a " breast," or a smaller oylinder whioh is also shown. In the ordinary feed, the wool is placed upon the travelling lattice a, and a given weight is as evenly as possible spread upon regular, marked spaces. In this case, the automatic feed attachment is shown also. This lattice carries the wool to the three small feed-rollers b, which deliver it to the " licker-in " c, which in turn yields it to the rapidly-revolving swift d. The series of rollers shown on the periphery of the breast and the large cylinder are termed " workers " e and " strippers"! Each worker has its connected stripper. The large rollers g are called " fancy rollers," and the larger ones h " doffers." The second part is a duplication of the first, possessing in addition merely a doffer comb i, which by its rapid oscillation strips the defier, and delivers the material in the form of sliver to the pressure-rollers, whenoe it is conveyed by one of several different methods in vog-ue to the condenser, when no intermediate is in nee.
All these rollers are clothed with appropriate card-clothing, composed of wire teeth bent at given angles, and set in sheets of leather, or of a compound of cotton and indiarubber ; these sheets form what is called the cctrd " foundation." Card-clothing is made in the form of sheets, 4-6 in. wide, and of length sufficient to extend across the breadth of the machine. The number and fineness of the staples or teeth vary according to requirement and the position they have to occupy in the machine. These sheets are nailed across the face of the cylinder with great care, so
as to present a perfeotly even surface, curving only to the periphery of the cylinder, doffers, workers, and fancy, for which they are generally used. " Filleting" is composed of long narrow strips usually 1-21 in. wide, and long enough to cover the roller in one piece. The smaller rollers, on which the clothing does not last so long as on the large ones, are generally clothed with filleting ; these are the strippers and angle-strippers. One end of the fillet, being made fast to the roller, is then wound helically over its surface, and secured at the other side.
The arrangement of the teeth of the clothing is of importance, In order to secure satisfactory results. In fact, without a proper position and accurate setting, regard being had to the relation of speed each bears to t,he other, and to the direction of revolution, such a result cannot be had. The old-fashioned way of adjusting the rollers was by sight, but this was seldom satisfactory. A gauge has of late years been introduced, and has come generally into use. By its means, accuracy is obtained and much time is saved.
A brief explanation of the action of the cards may here he given. The " licker-in " takes the wool from the feed-rollers, the card-teeth operating as hooks. As the periphery passes round to the cylinder, the teeth are then in the act of ascending (the bend being thus in the opposite direction), and presenting facilities for being stripped of the wool they have acquired. Here the cylinder, revolving 80-100 tirnes, equal to a surface velocity of 1000-1200 ft. a minute, and its teeth bent upwards, takes the wool from the licker-in, and rapidly carries it forward to the first worker e.
The teeth of the worker are bent in the opposite way to those of the cylinder ; and though its revolution is in the same direction, its surface velocity is so much less that it takes the wool from the cylinder, a sharp carding or combiog of the fibres taking place. As the worker carries the wool slowly round, it is relieved of its burden by the more swiftly revolving stripper f, whose teeth are bent upwards, and work against the back or smooth side of those of the worker, at the point of contact of their peripheries. The stripper as it carries the wool round presents the smooth side of its cards in turn to those of the cylinders, whose speed ag,ain enables it to take possession of the wool, which it then carries forward to the second worker, to which it again yields possession, and the operation just described is again gone through ; this is repeated at each succeeding stripper and worker, until all have been passed. The next roller to which the cylinder carries the wool is the " fancy," whose function is quite different from that of the workers or strippers. This revolves at a high velocity in the same direction as the cylinder, yet though their teeth are set opposite to each other, its action is not to strip the cylinder—the actual passage of the teeth beiag back to back—but to raise the wool to the surface of the cylinder teeth, so that it is easily taken possession of by, or rather is thrown upon the teeth of, the slow-moving defter, which are arranged with the bend npwards, ia order to receive earl retain it, until stripped by the first roller of another cylinder's set (as shown in Fig. 1452) or cleared by the doffer-comb at the end of the cylinder's work. The work of the scribbler is now concluded, and, if well performed, the basis of a good yam is laid.