The earliest mechanical device for carding fibers was invented by Lewis
Paul in England in 1738 but not patented until August 30, 1748. The
patent described two machines. The first, and less important, machine
consisted of 16 narrow cards mounted on a board; a single card held in
the hand performed the actual carding operation (see fig. 3). The second
machine utilized a horizontal cylinder covered with parallel rows of
card clothing. Under the cylinder was a concave frame lined with similar
card clothing. As the cylinder was turned, the cards on it worked
against those on the concave frame, separating and straightening the
fibers (see fig. 4). After the fibers were carded, the concave section
was lowered and the fibers were stripped off by hand with a needle
stick, an implement resembling a comb with very fine needlelike metal
teeth. Though his machine was far from perfect. Lewis Paul had invented
the carding cylinder working with stationary cards and the stripping
comb.
[Illustration: Figure 4.--THE PATENT DESCRIPTION OF PAUL'S SECOND
MACHINE suggested that the fibers be carded by a cylinder action, but be
removed in the same manner as directed in the first patent.]
[Illustration: Figure 5.--ILLUSTRATIONS FROM BRITISH PATENT 628, ISSUED
JANUARY 20, 1748, to Daniel Bourn for a roller card machine.]
[Illustration: Figure 6.--THE MOST IMPORTANT SINGLE FEATURE Illustrated
in Richard Arkwright's British patent 1111 of December 16, 1775,
provided "a crank and a frame of iron with teeth" to remove the carded
fibers from the cylinder.]
Another important British patent was granted in 1748 to Daniel Bourn,
who invented a machine with four carding rollers set close together, the
first of the roller-card type (see fig. 5). To produce a practical
carding machine, however, several additional mechanical improvements
were necessary. The first of these did not appear until more than two
decades later, in 1772, when John Lees of Manchester is reported to have
invented a machine featuring "a perpetual revolving cloth, called a
feeder," that fed the fibers into the machine.[2] Shortly afterward, the
stripper rollers[3] and the doffer comb[4] (a mechanical utilization of
Paul's hand device) were added. Both James Hargreaves and Richard
Arkwright claimed to be the inventor of these improvements, but it was
Arkwright who, in 1775, first patented these ideas. His comb and crank
(see fig. 6) provided a mechanical means by which the carded fibers
could be removed from the cylinder. With this, the cylinder card became
a practical machine. Arkwright continued the modification of the doffing
end by drawing the carded fibers through a funnel and then passing them
through two rollers. This produced a continuous sliver, a narrow ribbon
of fibers ready to be spun into yarn. However, it was soon realized that
the bulk characteristic desired in woolen yarns (but not desired in the
compact types such as worsted yarns or cotton yarns) required that the
wool be carded in a machine that would help produce this.
[Illustration: Figure 7.--NEWBURYPORT, MASSACHUSETTS, in 1796, AN
ENGRAVING FROM JOHN J. CURRIER'S _History of Newburyport,
Massachusetts_, 1764-1909, vol. 2, Newburyport, 1906-09.]
In carding wool it was found more effective to omit the flat stationary
cards and to use only rollers to work the fibers. The method of
preparing the sliver also had to be changed. Since it was necessary to
remove the wool fibers crosswise in the sliver, a fluted wooden cylinder
called a roller-bowl was used in conjunction with an under board or
shell. As a given section of the carded wool was fed between the fluted
cylinder and the board, the action of the cylinder rolled the fibers
into a sliver about the diameter of the finger and the length of the
cylinder. Although these were only 24-inch lengths as compared to the
continuous sliver produced by the Arkwright cotton-carding machine,[5]
wool could still be carded with much more speed and thoroughness than
with the small hand cards. This then was the state of mechanical wool
carding in England in the 1790's as two experienced wool manufacturers,
John and Arthur Scholfield, planned their trip to America.