!!Carding wool!!

In order to make conductive felt, you need to use steel wool, a flexible abrasive usually used for taking paint off the side of a house. There are several ways I have added steel wool to the pure wool before, either layering it into my combed top, or hand carding it with pet brushes. However, I have always known that the best way had to be using a drum carder. So, you can imagine my excitement when I had the opportunity to buy one.
serious YAY!
Below is the beautiful machine and this post documents the first time carding with combed top. There is no steel wool added yet, I wanted to get a feel for carding with it before I potentially ruined it by putting foreign materials through. heh heh

New carder!

combed top with carder

The way this drum carder works is you lay the wool on the tray in the front of the two drums and crank the handle on the side. The smaller drum (licker-in) grabs and pull the fibers in, then transfers the fibers to the larger drum (swift, I also call it main) where it gets distributed around the circumference while the fibers are separated and turned the same direction by the pins.

laying fibers on tray with fibers already distributed onto swift

feeding wool to the licker-in drum from the tray

wool on the swift drum, transferred from the licker-in

In order to get a nicely carded batting you want to out the wool mixture through the carder at least twice. There is a way to break and damage your fibers by putting them through too much, so be mindful of that. I have found that 2-4 times is substantial, depending on what I’m mixing.

unrolled batt from the first time through the carder, the colors are still pretty chunked together

I split the batting in two lengthwise and rolled each half through the carder again. I then decided that I wanted to add more wool and color, so I grabbed a little red.

decided to add red on the second go through

red transfered onto the main drum

To remove the batting, you use a tool called a doffer that is basically a long stick pointed at one end and strong enough to pull loose the fibers from the drum and their neighbors. My carder came with a wooden one. You slip it in the channel between the wool and the drum created by the brass metal seam on the drum. Pull up and pull the fibers loose from themselves so one side is free. Do this all down the seam.

freeing one end of batt in order to remove from carder

I learned a awesome trick in order to get the batting of the main drum from watching these amazing tutorials I found on youtube. This woman is my hero and I hope to put up some of my own vids with a definite shout out to her and her tips. Using a sushi mat makes it come off smoothly each time, and if you are already a felt enthusiast, you should have some of these already laying around.

rolling batting off main drum using bamboo sushi mat

I then split the batting differently this time around, I split it in half through the thickness of the batt. This way your fibers are already teased out to the width you need.

splitting batt in half

third time through carder, here you can see a lot of waste fiber on my licker-in

the final blended batting; blue, pink and a little red

After the first one, I needed to make another.

making second batt; green, blue and a little pink

final blended batt, two times through

Tips:
+ Keep the wool thin and spread evenly on the tray before you feed it into the carder.
+ Use you hand to gently guide the fibers onto the main drum if it isn’t transferring.
+ Turn the handle SLOWLY, this way almost all the fiber gets transferred and gives you more control of the situation.
+ use a soft bristol brush to pack down each new layer by putting the bristols down on main drum and turning handle.
+ clean the licker-in and swift as you go… I’m collecting all my waste fiber to felt with later!