How do you clean your drum carder?

By Amelia © September 26, 2009

After you’ve done whatever you usually do to clean off the drums (in my case, a flicker-like tool that came with my carder), I have one word: shop-vac. Love my little shop-vac for this, sucks everything right out of the crevasses and depths of the carding cloth. All that leaves is my needle-nose pliers to clean out the axles.

We always cover this topic in my drum carding class -- and at least one participant is surprised at how much fiber (and what colors!) they dig out of the axles.

If you are lucky enough to have a dedicated spot for your drum carder, remember to lift it up and check underneath -- bits of dirt, VM (vegetable matter), and short pieces of fiber all end up under there, and can be swept up in the breeze of the turning drum into the next batt.

For a thorough discourse on cleaning drum carders with terrific pictures, check out this post on Abby's Yarns.

Oh, and ... I always end a carding session by cleaning my drum carder. That way the next time I'm going to use it, I can get right to carding.

~~
I've covered a variety of drum carding topics in past posts; the most recent is
How do I card a self-striping batt?
~~

© 26 September 2009 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.blogspot.com/