Editing Carding (section)

==Cotton manufacturing processes==
{{center|{{Cotton processing flowchart}}}} <!-- is the correct markup- but has no effect pres. a css conflict -->
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[[File:Catalonia Terrassa mNATEC CardaObridora.jpg|thumb|upright|Carding machine]]

'''Carding''': the fibres are separated and then assembled into a loose strand ([[sliver (textiles)|sliver]] or [[tow (fibre)|tow]]) at the conclusion of this stage.
{{Blockquote|The cotton comes off of the picking machine in laps, and is then taken to carding machines. The carders line up the fibres<!--presumably English sp, from the British publisher, in quotation--> nicely to make them easier to spin. The carding machine consists mainly of one big roller with smaller ones surrounding it. All of the rollers are covered with small teeth, and as the cotton progresses further on the teeth get finer (i.e. closer together). The cotton leaves the carding machine in the form of a sliver; a large rope of fibres.<ref>{{Harvnb|Collier |1970|pp=66,67}}</ref>}}

In a wider sense carding can refer to the four processes of willowing, lapping, carding and drawing. In '''willowing''' the fibres are loosened. In '''lapping'''  the dust is removed to create a flat sheet or lap of fibres; '''Carding''' itself is the combing of the tangled lap into a thick rope or sliver of 1/2 inch in diameter, it can then be optionally combed, is used to remove the shorter fibres, creating a stronger yarn.

[[File:Catalonia Terrassa mNATEC Pentinadora.jpg|thumb|upright|A combing machine]]

In '''drawing''' a '''drawing frame''' combines 4 slivers into one. Repeated drawing increases the quality of the sliver allowing for finer counts to be spun.<ref>{{Harvnb|Collier |1970|p=69}}</ref> Each sliver will have thin and thick spots, and by combining several slivers together a more consistent size can be reached. Since combining several slivers produces a very thick rope of cotton fibres, directly after being combined the slivers are separated into rovings. These rovings (or slubbings) are then what are used in the spinning process.<ref>{{Harvnb|Collier |1970|pp=70}}</ref>

For machine processing, a roving is about the width of a pencil. The rovings are collected in a drum and proceed to the '''slubbing frame''' which adds twist, and winds onto bobbins. '''Intermediate Frames''' are used to repeat the slubbing process to produce a finer yarn, and then the '''roving frames''' reduces it to a finer thread, gives more twist, makes more regular and even in thickness, and winds onto a smaller tube.<ref>{{Harvnb|Hills|1993|p=4}}</ref>

The carders used currently in woollen mills differ very little from machines used 20 to 50 years ago, and in some cases, the machines are from that era.

Machine carders vary in size from the one that easily fits on the kitchen table, to the carder that takes up a full room [http://frysingerreunion.org/1/new_england/sturbridge47.jpg]{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}.

A carder that takes up a full room works very similarly, the main difference being that the fibre goes through many more drums often with intervening cross laying to even out the load on the subsequent cards, which normally get finer as the fibre progresses through the system.

When the fibre comes off the drum, it is in the form of a bat – a flat, orderly mass of fibres. If a small drum carder is being used, the bat is the length of the circumference of the big drum and is often the finished product. A big drum carder, though, will then take that bat and turn it into roving, by stretching it thinner and thinner, until it is the desired thickness (often rovings are the thickness of a wrist). (A rolag differs from a roving because it is not a continuous strand, and because the fibres end up going across instead of along the strand.) Cotton fibres are fed into the machine, picked up and brushed onto flats when carded.

Some hand-spinners have a small drum carder at home especially for the purpose of mixing together the different coloured fibre that are bought already carded.

<gallery mode="packed" heights="150" caption="Historical Carding Machines">
File:Restored carding machine at Quarry Bank Mill.jpg|A restored carding machine at [[Quarry Bank Mill]] in the UK
File:Carding machine 1913 – Mueller Woollen Cloth Mill.ogg|A wool carder from 1913 at the Mueller Tuchfabrik, Euskirchen
File:Double carder.JPG|19th-century ox-powered double carding machine
</gallery>