Drum Carding
The most important thing to remember about drum carding is that it must be slow and gentle. Never force the fiber or your carder, or you will ruin both.
First we take our teased fiber and lay it on the feeding tray of our carder. Watch out for the licker-in - mine has very sharp teeth! Gently let the licker-in "lick" the fiber in, a very little at a time. Taking time now will save you time in the long run.
When the surface of your drumcarder has fiber evenly spaced over the surface, yet not so much that it's overflowing the teeth, you're ready to doff your batt.
Take your doffer and gently run it along the seam of your drumcarder, separating the fibers of the batt a little at a time, until you've made your way across.
Pull your batt off of the back of the carder, applying a gentle pressure so that it comes off in one piece.
Repeat the carding process a second time, thinning your batt and spreading it out before you feed it into the carder again.
Your carded fiber should now be ready to spin.
If you are getting lumps and bumps in your fiber, you're likely feeding too much in the carder at once, or turning the carder's crank too quickly and hard. Fibers will stretch with gentle pressure, but with fast, hard pressure, they will stretch and then snap, and leave you with a bumpy nepp in your spinning material! So always take it slow and easy with a drum carder. These are not industrial machines!
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