Carding

Carding is accomplished on a truly amazing machine.  The teeth on the many drums of the carder comb the fiber, causing it to be aligned in one direction.  Opened fiber is weighed out manually and spread evenly on the infeed belt as pictured here.

The thin web of fiber that emerges from the carder can be gathered up in on of two forms:

Roving, pictured here, can be wound into a center-pull bump or collected in cans so it can go on the spinning process,

or a batt, can be formed as the web is wound around a drum the width of the carder.  When a batt is removed from the drum, it is a very fluffy sheet of well-combed and separate fiber.