🧵 Carding Machine: Turning Fiber into Sliver
The Carding Machine is the real hero of the spinning section—it's where raw fibers are untangled, cleaned, and transformed into a uniform sliver. Think of it as a magical comb that aligns millions of fibers into neat parallel rows, ready to become yarn.
A Carding Machine is a textile machine that individualizes and opens clumped fibers, removes impurities, aligns them, and forms a continuous web or sliver. It is the first major step in yarn production after blow room processing.
- To individualize and separate fibers from a mass.
- To remove impurities like neps, dirt, seed particles, and short fibers.
- To parallelize fibers for smoother drafting and spinning.
- To form a uniform sliver with consistent weight per meter.
- To improve yarn quality by reducing unevenness and defects early on.
- Cylinder: Main rotating drum covered with card clothing (wire teeth).
- Flat Tops: Smaller rotating components that move slowly over the cylinder to assist fiber opening.
- Licker-in: Feeds raw tufts onto the cylinder.
- Doffer: Removes the carded web from the cylinder surface.
- Can Delivery: Final sliver is collected in cans for the next machine (like draw frame).
- Waste Extraction: Trash and short fiber extraction systems are built-in.
- Feeding: Cleaned cotton from the blow room enters the licker-in area.
- Opening: Licker-in begins the first level of fiber separation and trash removal.
- Carding Action: Fibers pass between cylinder and flat tops—here they are fully separated, cleaned, and aligned.
- Web Formation: A thin sheet of parallel fibers is formed on the cylinder surface.
- Doffing: The web is removed by the doffer roller and condensed into a soft rope-like form.
- Sliver Delivery: The sliver is coiled into cans and sent to the draw frame machine.
- Contains mostly long and clean fibers.
- Fibers are fairly parallel, but not fully aligned (that happens in draw frame).
- Evenness: Improved consistency in weight per meter compared to raw fiber.
- Residual impurities: Removed significantly.
- Soft, fluffy texture ready for further processing.
In a cotton spinning mill, carding machines process fiber after blow room. The carded sliver is then passed through draw frames to improve evenness, followed by roving and ring frames. For open-end spinning, carded sliver can directly go to rotor spinning.
“Carding decides the quality of 70% of the final yarn. If you get this step right, the rest is smooth sailing.”
- Used in ring-spun yarns for garments, bedsheets, and knitwear.
- Feeds directly into open-end spinning systems for towels, denims, and coarse fabrics.
- Also used in non-woven industries for medical textiles, filters, and insulation materials.
- Conventional Card: Basic, manual machine for small-scale production.
- High Production Card: Modern machine with automation and high-speed capabilities (e.g., Trützschler TC 15, Rieter C 75).
- Double Card: For extremely fine fibers or specialty yarns (wool, synthetic blends).
- Removes dust, trash, neps, and short fibers.
- Reduces yarn defects like thick/thin places.
- Improves fiber blending and distribution.
- Essential for better drafting and spinning results.
- Automated cards improve productivity and quality control.
The Carding Machine is not just a cleaning or combing device—it's a transformative tool. It takes raw, messy fibers and turns them into the building block of yarn: the sliver. No matter how advanced spinning technology gets, carding remains the heartbeat of the yarn-making process.
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