when loaded clothing is reaching its capacity. You need enough tooth exposure to pick and
and comb incoming fibers. You can also feel and hear when the clothing becomes too full:
the handle will turn with difficulty, even though no new fiber is being added, and you'll hear a
muffled, rubbing sound.
Doffing
Taking the fiber off the card clothing is called doffing. Often a doffing rod, or similar device, is
used to left the fiber away from the drum. Most carder manufacturers provide a doffer, but an
old, long, steel knitting needle, an old ice pick, or a painted steel rod will do nicely. (Aluminum
knitting needles are not strong enough.) Be sure that your doffer is not so sharp that it
damages the backing of the card clothing. The doffing of wool, which is a typical long fiber and gives
as much difficulty as any substance you will encounter (after wool, cotton is a breeze.)
First, turn the loaded drum so that the seam of the card clothing is exposed. This is where
the two ends meet and are tacked down, and you'll most likely find a row or two of teeth
missing at this point. You might think that you can slide the doffer under the batt and lift up one end. If
this is cotton or short wool, you can - but any long fiber will present a dense mat which will not come
apart without a struggle. Start at the far edge and slide the doffer under an inch or two (2.5 - 5cm) of
the batt. Lift this, allowing the fibers to slide apart. Although you may need to pull very hard, don't
tear the fibers. If you think damage is imminent, try a smaller amount. Then work your way across the
drum until you have opened the entire batt. Now one end of the batt is free, but the rest is still caught in
the teeth. If you pull up gently on the loose end while turning the drum backward, most of the fiber will
lift away - but not all of it will. The closer you get to the end of the batt, the more fiber will remain in
the teeth - often as much as half the thickness at the end. Use the rod to lift the batt away from the drum
as you pull the free end of the batt up and back. Note that you can even do this if the teeth on your card
clothing are arranged diagonally. To lift away the entire batt, use these motions but repeatedly slide the
doffer under the batt about 4 or 5 inches (10 - 12.5 cm) ahead of where it is being lifted free. Lift with
the rod, then pull on the loose end. Back up the drum and repeat. In a few moments the batt will lift
entirely free of the teeth. A word on doffing mesh. Some people like this way of handling the task. The
mesh is an open net that fits the card clothing - you can buy or make one. It is laid into the teeth and
pushed all the way down before carding begins. At unloading time, the fibers are loosened at the tail
end of the mesh and the mesh is pulled up out of the teeth, bringing the fiber with it. However, I'd
rather doff with a rod and not fiddle around so much. When both sides are firmly held, pull apart. The
two halves will retain the original flat configuration. The idea is to separate each batt into thin sheets of
fiber which you'll feed back through the carder.
Between Rounds
You are now ready to re-card, but don't try to feed the entire batt into the carder at once. If
you do, your carder will become overloaded, the carding will be incomplete, and the machine
will jam. Finally, the poorly carded fiber will be difficult to spin smoothly. After the first carding, the
texture of the batt will be uneven, but it will have two characteristics of completely carded batts: the
layered arrangement and the lengthwise grain of overlapping fibers. You can use these characteristics to
quickly prepare the fiber for the next step. At this point, some people pull a strip from the side of the
batt and fluff it into a thin layer. Again, I don't like to spend this much time on the task. In the amount
of time it takes to pull off and spread out one strip, you can probably prepare a whole batt with my
method. place your hands on the front and back sides of a batt, and pull it into two halves - imagine that
the batt is a magazine, and you are grasping (and crumpling) the back cover and about
half the pages
(the classified ads) in one hand, and the front cover and about half the introductory pages in the other.
Gently pull. Repeat this with each half a couple more times, until you have thin sheets. Now divide
