We got some very nice, antique hand cards at an auction a few months ago. I decided to restore them for doing historic reenactments.
The original carding cloth on these was pretty roached and the leather was completely rotted. You can see from the first photo that they were used a lot!
It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed doing it because I love old things back into usefulness.
With the really hard work completed, I went on to prepping the new 120 tpi carding cloth I bought from @HowardBrushCompany.
The most important part to achieving a good cut line on carding cloth is to complete the prep work of removing the carding pins from the cut area. The second important part is having a very sharp pair of sheers!! The ones pictured above are a vintage pair of Wiss Inlaid No. 38’s!! They cut through nearly everything like it’s butter!
I recorded a video of some of the process(https://www.facebook.com/MrsDsFiberOdyssey/videos/142338083542443/), including a blooper video (https://www.facebook.com/MrsDsFiberOdyssey/videos/624582811450873/), but I’m too cheap to post them here. You can find them on my Instagram or Facebook page under Mrs. D’s Fiber Odyssey.
It took me awhile to achieve nearly perfect, straight lines. I obviously had to trim the cloth again (photo #2) because the bottom edge was a bit off on the left side.
Now, some of you may get upset, annoyed, or get your undies in a wad because I used an adhesive to set the carding cloth in place on these ginormous hand cards (9-1/2″ long and 8-1/2″ wide). While they are stiff when you first use them, they do loosen up with use; it’s how I learned from my Grand Pere and he was a mechanical engineer in a woolen mill.
They work very well and I’m quite pleased! I’ll try and post where I’ll be demonstrating when winter is over.
Get busy! The yarn doesn’t spin itself!!
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