Carding wool: Is there a magic bullet?

I process a lot of raw wool for spinning and I really enjoy it. After the wool is scoured and dried, it can carded (by hand or machine) or combed. Clearly, there isn't a way to speed up combing wool by hand except for loads of practice. Are drum carders a different story?

After I'd been spinning for a while, I invested in a drum carder in the hopes it would speed things up. I was doing a lot of art yarn spinning at the time so I bought an Ashford Wild Carder. It worked well. With its super long teeth, it easily held 30 gms of fiber. I was surprised at how long it took me to get a batt (or six) finished so it seemed time to upgrade to an electric carder.

Between research and budget I chose an electric Fancy Kitty. What a treat, no more turning the handle! But, it still took me the better part of a morning to get six batts done. In the meantime, I'd been hanging out at my friend Lisa's house a bit. Lisa has the best of everything; she's been spinning forever and has acquired  a whole lot of tools along her journey. She has about 5  carders including an electric Louet and a Pat Green Supercard and she can't get fiber carded any more quickly than I.

I'd known about Pat Green's carders forever and I really wanted one. I could have afforded a manual one but thought I'd be happier with an electric. When a Deb's Delicate Deluxe came up for sale for a great price so I grabbed it even though it was manual. Guess what? I can card up six batts on the Pat Green as fast as I can on my electric carder!

I might mention that I also have a pair of hand cards. Spinning rolags is the best and I love long draw spinning. I need way more practice with them but it is really nice to be able to sit on the sofa with hand cards and a basket of clean wool to card. Folks skilled at making rolags can probably beat a drum carder at getting wool ready to spin.

In summary: in my experience, carding is a slow process and the carder itself probably plays only a small role in how quickly wool can be turned into batts. The type of fiber and the quality of the fiber matter more than does the specific carder. That's not to say that some carders aren't better than others but you do have to go through the same motions with every carder. So, I don't think that there really isn't a magic bullet  (carder).

What make a carder better? I think a higher ratio between drum and licker in helps. Gearing on manual carders that makes the handle easy to turn is a help. The tpi (teeth per inch) matters too. 120 tpi is going to a pain to use with coarse wool and merino will need extra passes with 42 tpi.  Personally, I think that having two drum carders is a good setup; one coarse and one fine.

Notes:
I never put more that about an ounce of fiber on either carder; I find that adding more results in a compacted batt that doesn't draft as easily as a thinner batt. The two minutes needed to remove the batt is worth the improvement in spinning experience.  Also, GIGO (garbage in-garbage out) applies to carding. Try to card fiber with a lot of second cuts, you'll get a batt full of nepps and noils. Same for chaff; a carder won't clean fiber. Yes, the licker in will grab some of the second cuts and chaff but not all. When shopping for a carder, I recommend getting a lower tpi than you think you need because you can always run the fiber through twice and you'll have more versatility in carding coarser fiber.

Be Ruthless!

I'm working my way thru 4 pounds of delightful Bond. I might comb some of it but I'm using my drum carder (Fancy Kitty, 70/90) for the vast majority. When I first started processing raw wool, I tried so hard to use every little bit for spinning. I just couldn't bear to waste any of the wool that I'd worked so hard to get clean and carded. Well, after more than a few years, I've gotten pretty ruthless. If I see the slightest hint of a nep, a noil or a short cut that escaped my notice, I pull it out of the wool as I card it. Those little bits seem to have the power to reproduce as they go through the carder and I really don't want to pull them out as I spin. So, I'm ruthless.

Here's a pic of what I pulled out of about 5 ounces of fiber. It weighs 1/3 of an ounce (about 10 grams). So there really isn't that much waste; it just looks like a lot. Also, you can see the neps and noils and tangles when light is shines through the waste.


The truth of the matter is that you don't have to waste any fiber. Also, spinning yarn with lots of lumps to remove as you spin is a pain. So, you can use hand combs and make rolags from the carder waste for a nice woolen yarn. If you don't want to use hand cards, use the waste in textured yarns. You can even give the waste to the birds for their nests or use it for mulch in your garden. Be ruthless with less that less than perfect fiber as you process it. I think this makes for a much better yarn and more fun spinning.

Here's a pic of the finished batts: