IMPROVEMENTS IN COMBING CARDS FOR THE PRE- PARATION OF FLAX, WOOL, JUTE, AND OTHER SIMILAR MATTERS.
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Félix Arnold and Eugène Grégoire
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 31st March 1877.
FÉLIX ARNOLD, Mechanician, and EUGÈNE GRÉGOIRE, Agent, both of Boulevard
Saint Denis, No. 1, at Paris. "IMPROVEMENTS IN COMBING CARDS FOR THE PRE-
PARATION OF FLAX, WOOL, JUTE, AND OTHER SIMILAR MATTERS.
The object of our Invention is to give combined combing and carding to tow or
other fibres of flax, wool, jute, or other like substances. Following the general
principle of action of circular cards or carding engines, we adopt an arrangement
by which we can produce a more regular parallelism of the fibres, obtain a better
clearing of the material, and at the same time have less waste.
Our apparatus or combing cards are composed of a series of three or other number
of card drums or cylinders of about 18 inches in diameter, reckoning from the
points of the card teeth or pins; the axes of these drums are in the same horizontal
plane. In front of the first of these drums there are, as in circular cards or carding
engines, spreading or distributing aprons, and a pair of feed rollers. The lower
feed roller is followed by a stripping roller which prevents it being choked up with
the tow or fibre. The fibre spread upon the apron enters between the seed rollers
as in circular carding machines, and is seized by the first card drum, which bring it
to a combing roller in the same state as in circular carding engines, the drum
brings the fibre to the first pair of rollers. If this combing roller were provided
with teeth or pins identical with those of the first card roller in circular carding
engines, it would retain the greater part of the fibre carried by the drum, and there
would be a first carding; but our combing roller is provided with long pins, much
inclined, and placed at a considerable distance apart in parallel lines, which are suffi-
ciently separated to form a series of combs as in a flax heckling machine. The combing
roller revolves slowly, and the fibre carried by the drum passes through the pins so
as to become combed while the roller retains the flocks, the loose fibres, and those
placed transversely; the rest of the fibre is carried to a roller having pins or teeth
similar to those of the card rollers in circular carding engines. The work is here
effected as in such engines, that is to say, the fibre on the drum will remain hooked
to the pins of the last named roller, and this roller may be placed nearer to the
drum than usual in order that it may hold nearly all the fibre. The fibre on this

page_text: roller is taken up by a stripping roller, which delivers it to the second card drum,
while the fibro retained by the combing roller is taken up by another stripping
roller and likewise delivered to the second drum; but this fibre is deposited upon a
finer and better worked fibre. The whole is again combed by a second combing
roller, finer than the first, while the fibre retained by the second drum is removed by
a card roller finer than that of the first drum, and thus the work proceeds with
the third card drum, and so on for as many card drums as there may be in the
machine.
The fibre is removed from the card roller of the last card drum by means of a
drum of about 14 inches in diameter, which rotates quickly and delivers it to a
doffer from which it is detached by a doffing knife in the form of a sliver as in
ordinary carding engines. The fibre retained by the last combing roller is similarly
removed by another drum and delivered to a separate doffer, from which it also is
detached by a doffing knife and formed into a sliver, which may either be used to
mako inferior yarns or threads, or be submitted to a fresh carding operation. The
carding drums have graduated card teeth or pins, and are driven at graduated
speeds; the graduated draft produced by the graduated speeds much assists the
parallelizing of the fibres.
As the spreading or supply of the fibres to the first card or drum takes place at the
side opposite to its delivery, the drum may be covered in at the supply side so
that the attendant does not experience that great annoyance from draft and
dust which is caused by ordinary carding engines, but as the speed of the first
drum in our arrangement is slow the draft will not be great.
If thought desirable a well and a suction pipe may be placed below the machine
(which is practicable with our arrangement) so that the greater part of the dust may
be exhausted.