Carding

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Dyed wool being carded with a 1949 Tatham carding machine at Jamieson Mill, Sandness, Shetland, Scotland Jamieson wool Shetland.jpg
Dyed wool being carded with a 1949 Tatham carding machine at Jamieson Mill, Sandness, Shetland, Scotland
Cotton carder (known as dhunuri or lep wallah) in Howrah, Kolkata, India Muhammad Ainul - Howrah 2011-12-11 00914.jpg
Cotton carder (known as dhunuri or lep wallah) in Howrah, Kolkata, India
William Tatham Breaker carder. William Tatham Breaker Carding engine.jpg
William Tatham Breaker carder.

In textile production, carding is a mechanical process that disentangles, cleans and intermixes fibres to produce a continuous web or sliver suitable for subsequent processing. [1] This is achieved by passing the fibres between differentially moving surfaces covered with "card clothing", a firm flexible material embedded with metal pins. It breaks up locks and unorganised clumps of fibre and then aligns the individual fibres to be parallel with each other. In preparing wool fibre for spinning, carding is the step that comes after teasing. [2]

Contents

The word is derived from the Latin Carduus meaning thistle or teasel, [3] as dried vegetable teasels were first used to comb the raw wool before technological advances led to the use of machines.

Overview

These ordered fibres can then be passed on to other processes that are specific to the desired end use of the fibre: Cotton, batting, felt, woollen or worsted yarn, etc. Carding can also be used to create blends of different fibres or different colours. When blending, the carding process combines the different fibres into a homogeneous mix. Commercial cards also have rollers and systems designed to remove some vegetable matter contaminants from the wool.[ citation needed ]

Common to all carders is card clothing. Card clothing is made from a sturdy flexible backing in which closely spaced wire pins are embedded. The shape, length, diameter, and spacing of these wire pins are dictated by the card designer and the particular requirements of the application where the card cloth will be used. A later version of the card clothing product developed during the latter half of the 19th century and was found only on commercial carding machines, whereby a single piece of serrated wire was wrapped around a roller, became known as metallic card clothing.[ citation needed ]

Carding machines are known as cards. Fibre may be carded by hand for hand spinning.

History

Science historian Joseph Needham ascribes the invention of bow-instruments used in textile technology to India. [4] The earliest evidence for using bow-instruments for carding comes from India (2nd century CE). [4] These carding devices, called kaman (bow) and dhunaki, would loosen the texture of the fibre by the means of a vibrating string. [4]

At the turn of the eighteenth century, wool in England was being carded using pairs of hand cards, in a two-stage process: 'working' with the cards opposed and 'stripping' where they are in parallel. [5]

In 1748 Lewis Paul of Birmingham, England, invented two hand driven carding machines. The first used a coat of wires on a flat table moved by foot pedals. This failed. On the second, a coat of wire slips was placed around a card which was then wrapped around a cylinder. [5] Daniel Bourn obtained a similar patent in the same year, and probably used it in his spinning mill at Leominster, but this burnt down in 1754. [6] The invention was later developed and improved by Richard Arkwright and Samuel Crompton. Arkwright's second patent (of 1775) for his carding machine was subsequently declared invalid (1785) because it lacked originality. [7]

A "Cotton carder": an old engraving copied from artist Pierre Sonnerat's 1782 illustration Dhunuri Cotton-Carder India 1774-1781.jpg
A "Cotton carder": an old engraving copied from artist Pierre Sonnerat's 1782 illustration

From the 1780s, the carding machines were set up in mills in the north of England and mid-Wales. Priority was given to cotton but woollen fibres were being carded in Yorkshire in 1780. With woollen, two carding machines were used: the first or the scribbler opened and mixed the fibres, the second or the condenser mixed and formed the web. [8] The first in Wales was in a factory at Dolobran near Meifod in 1789. These carding mills produced yarn particularly for the Welsh flannel industry. [9]

In 1834 James Walton invented the first practical machines to use a wire card. He patented this machine and also a new form of card with layers of cloth and rubber. The combination of these two inventions became the standard for the carding industry, using machines first built by Parr, Curtis and Walton in Ancoats, and from 1857 by Jams Walton & Sons at Haughton Dale. [10]

By 1838, the Spen Valley, centred on Cleckheaton, had at least 11 card clothing factories and by 1893, it was generally accepted as the card cloth capital of the world, though by 2008 only two manufacturers of metallic and flexible card clothing remained in England: Garnett Wire Ltd., dating from 1851, and Joseph Sellers & Son Ltd., established in 1840.[ citation needed ]

Baird from Scotland took carding to Leicester, Massachusetts, in the 1780s. In the 1890s, the town produced one-third of all hand and machine cards in North America.[ citation needed ] John and Arthur Slater, from Saddleworth went over to work with Slater in 1793. [8]

A 1780s scribbling mill would be driven by a water wheel. There were 170 scribbling mills around Leeds at that time. Each scribbler would require 15–45 horsepower (11–34 kW) to operate. Modern machines are driven by belting from an electric motor or an overhead shaft via two pulleys. [8]

Cotton manufacturing processes

Cotton manufacturing processes
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Bale breakerBlowing room
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Willowing FCIcon ovo.svg
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Breaker scutcher Batting
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Finishing scutcherLappingTeasing
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Carding Carding room
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Sliver lap FCIcon ovo.svg
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Combing FCIcon ovo.svg
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Drawing
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Slubbing
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Intermediate
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Roving FCIcon h.svg Fine roving
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Mule spinning Ring spinning Spinning
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FCIcon orh.svg FCIcon h.svg FCIcon hrh.svg FCIcon h.svg FCIcon h1o.svg
FCIcon ovo.svg Reeling FCIcon a.svg Doubling
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WindingBundlingBleaching
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Weaving shed FCIcon vvo.svg Winding
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Beaming FCIcon vvo.svg Cabling
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Warping FCIcon vvo.svg Gassing
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Sizing/slashing/dressing FCIcon vvo.svg Spooling
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Weaving FCIcon vvo.svg FCIcon ovo.svg
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ClothYarn (cheese) BundleSewing thread
Carding machine Catalonia Terrassa mNATEC CardaObridora.jpg
Carding machine

Carding: the fibres are separated and then assembled into a loose strand (sliver or tow) at the conclusion of this stage.

The cotton comes off of the picking machine in laps, and is then taken to carding machines. The carders line up the fibres nicely to make them easier to spin. The carding machine consists mainly of one big roller with smaller ones surrounding it. All of the rollers are covered with small teeth, and as the cotton progresses further on the teeth get finer (i.e. closer together). The cotton leaves the carding machine in the form of a sliver; a large rope of fibres. [11]

In a wider sense carding can refer to the four processes of willowing, lapping, carding and drawing. In willowing the fibres are loosened. In lapping the dust is removed to create a flat sheet or lap of fibres; Carding itself is the combing of the tangled lap into a thick rope or sliver of 1/2 inch in diameter, it can then be optionally combed, is used to remove the shorter fibres, creating a stronger yarn.

A combing machine Catalonia Terrassa mNATEC Pentinadora.jpg
A combing machine

In drawing a drawing frame combines 4 slivers into one. Repeated drawing increases the quality of the sliver allowing for finer counts to be spun. [12] Each sliver will have thin and thick spots, and by combining several slivers together a more consistent size can be reached. Since combining several slivers produces a very thick rope of cotton fibres, directly after being combined the slivers are separated into rovings. These rovings (or slubbings) are then what are used in the spinning process. [13]

For machine processing, a roving is about the width of a pencil. The rovings are collected in a drum and proceed to the slubbing frame which adds twist, and winds onto bobbins. Intermediate Frames are used to repeat the slubbing process to produce a finer yarn, and then the roving frames reduces it to a finer thread, gives more twist, makes more regular and even in thickness, and winds onto a smaller tube. [14]

The carders used currently in woollen mills differ very little from machines used 20 to 50 years ago, and in some cases, the machines are from that era.

Machine carders vary in size from the one that easily fits on the kitchen table, to the carder that takes up a full room [ permanent dead link ].

A carder that takes up a full room works very similarly, the main difference being that the fibre goes through many more drums often with intervening cross laying to even out the load on the subsequent cards, which normally get finer as the fibre progresses through the system.

When the fibre comes off the drum, it is in the form of a bat – a flat, orderly mass of fibres. If a small drum carder is being used, the bat is the length of the circumference of the big drum and is often the finished product. A big drum carder, though, will then take that bat and turn it into roving, by stretching it thinner and thinner, until it is the desired thickness (often rovings are the thickness of a wrist). (A rolag differs from a roving because it is not a continuous strand, and because the fibres end up going across instead of along the strand.) Cotton fibres are fed into the machine, picked up and brushed onto flats when carded.

Some hand-spinners have a small drum carder at home especially for the purpose of mixing together the different coloured fibre that are bought already carded.

Tools

Predating mechanised weaving, hand loom weaving was a cottage industry that used the same processes but on a smaller scale. These skills have survived as an artisan craft or as an art form and hobby. [15]

Hand carders

Creating a rolag using hand cards Rolag.jpg
Creating a rolag using hand cards
Irreler Bauerntradition shows carding, spinning and knitting in the Roscheider Hof Open Air Museum

Hand cards are typically square or rectangular paddles manufactured in a variety of sizes from 2 by 2 inches (5.1 cm × 5.1 cm) to 4 by 8 inches (10 cm × 20 cm). The working face of each paddle can be flat or cylindrically curved and wears the card cloth. Small cards, called flick cards, are used to flick the ends of a lock of fibre, or to tease out some strands for spinning off. [16]

A pair of cards is used to brush the wool between them until the fibres are more or less aligned in the same direction. The aligned fibre is then peeled from the card as a rolag. Carding is an activity normally done outside or over a drop cloth, depending on the wool's cleanliness. Rolag is peeled from the card.[ citation needed ]

A carding machine in Haikou, Hainan Province, China Quilt making 04.JPG
A carding machine in Haikou, Hainan Province, China

This product (rovings, rolags, and batts) can be used for spinning.

Carding of wool can either be done "in the grease" or not, depending on the type of machine and on the spinner's preference. "In the grease" means that the lanolin that naturally comes with the wool has not been washed out, leaving the wool with a slightly greasy feel. The large drum carders do not tend to get along well with lanolin, so most commercial worsted and woollen mills wash the wool before carding. Hand carders (and small drum carders too, though the directions may not recommend it) can be used to card lanolin-rich wool.

Drum carders

Carding llama hair with a hand-cranked drum carder Carding llama hair.jpg
Carding llama hair with a hand-cranked drum carder

The simplest machine carder is the drum carder. Most drum carders are hand-cranked but some are powered by an electric motor. These machines generally have two rollers, or drums, covered with card clothing. The licker-in, or smaller roller meters fibre from the infeed tray onto the larger storage drum. The two rollers are connected to each other by a belt- or chain-drive so that their relative speeds cause the storage drum to gently pull fibres from the licker-in. This pulling straightens the fibres and lays them between the wire pins of the storage drum's card cloth. Fibre is added until the storage drum's card cloth is full. A gap in the card cloth facilitates removal of the batt when the card cloth is full.

Some drum carders have a soft-bristled brush attachment that presses the fibre into the storage drum. This attachment serves to condense the fibres already in the card cloth and adds a small amount of additional straightening to the condensed fibre.[ citation needed ]

Cottage carders

Cottage carding machines differ significantly from the simple drum card. These carders do not store fibre in the card cloth as the drum carder does; rather, fibre passes through the workings of the carder for storage or for additional processing by other machines.

A typical cottage carder has a single large drum (the swift) accompanied by a pair of in-feed rollers (nippers), one or more pairs of worker and stripper rollers, a fancy, and a doffer. In-feed to the carder is usually accomplished by hand or by conveyor belt and often the output of the cottage carder is stored as a batt or further processed into roving and wound into bumps with an accessory bump winder. The cottage carder in the image below supports both outputs.

Raw fibre, placed on the in-feed table or conveyor is moved to the nippers which restrain and meter the fiber onto the swift. As they are transferred to the swift, many of the fibres are straightened and laid into the swift's card cloth. These fibres will be carried past the worker or stripper rollers to the fancy.

As the swift carries the fibres forward, from the nippers, those fibres that are not yet straightened are picked up by a worker and carried over the top to its paired stripper. Relative to the surface speed of the swift, the worker turns quite slowly. This has the effect of reversing the fibre. The stripper, which turns at a higher speed than the worker, pulls fibres from the worker and passes them to the swift. The stripper's relative surface speed is slower than the swift's so the swift pulls the fibres from the stripper for additional straightening.

Straightened fibres are carried by the swift to the fancy. The fancy's card cloth is designed to engage with the swift's card cloth so that the fibres are lifted to the tips of the swift's card cloth and carried by the swift to the doffer. The fancy and the swift are the only rollers in the carding process that actually touch.

The slowly turning doffer removes the fibres from the swift and carries them to the fly comb where they are stripped from the doffer. A fine web of more or less parallel fibre, a few fibres thick and as wide as the carder's rollers, exits the carder at the fly comb by gravity or other mechanical means for storage or further processing.[ citation needed ]

See also

Related Research Articles

Spinning is a twisting technique to form yarn from fibers. The fiber intended is drawn out, twisted, and wound onto a bobbin. A few popular fibers that are spun into yarn other than cotton, which is the most popular, are viscose, animal fibers such as wool, and synthetic polyester. Originally done by hand using a spindle whorl, starting in the 500s AD the spinning wheel became the predominant spinning tool across Asia and Europe. The spinning jenny and spinning mule, invented in the late 1700s, made mechanical spinning far more efficient than spinning by hand, and especially made cotton manufacturing one of the most important industries of the Industrial Revolution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Worsted</span> Fabrics manufactured from worsted yarns

Worsted is a high-quality type of wool yarn, the fabric made from this yarn, and a yarn weight category. The name derives from Worstead, a village in the English county of Norfolk. That village, together with North Walsham and Aylsham, formed a manufacturing centre for yarn and cloth in the 12th century, when pasture enclosure and liming rendered the East Anglian soil too rich for the older agrarian sheep breeds. In the same period, many weavers from the County of Flanders moved to Norfolk. "Worsted" yarns/fabrics are distinct from woollens : the former is considered stronger, finer, smoother, and harder than the latter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spinning jenny</span> Multi-spool spinning frame

The spinning jenny is a multi-spindle spinning frame, and was one of the key developments in the industrialisation of textile manufacturing during the early Industrial Revolution. It was invented in 1764–1765 by James Hargreaves in Stan hill, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire in England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spinning frame</span> Industrial Revolution invention for spinning thread in a mechanized way

The spinning frame is an Industrial Revolution invention for spinning thread or yarn from fibres such as wool or cotton in a mechanized way. It was developed in 18th-century Britain by Richard Arkwright and John Kay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roving</span> Long, narrow bundle of fiber

A roving is a long and narrow bundle of fiber. Rovings are produced during the process of making spun yarn from wool fleece, raw cotton, or other fibres. Their main use is as fibre prepared for spinning, but they may also be used for specialised kinds of knitting or other textile arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Textile manufacturing</span> The industry which produces textiles

Textile manufacturing or textile engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful goods such as clothing, household items, upholstery and various industrial products.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spinning mule</span> Machine used to spin cotton and other fibres

The spinning mule is a machine used to spin cotton and other fibres. They were used extensively from the late 18th to the early 20th century in the mills of Lancashire and elsewhere. Mules were worked in pairs by a minder, with the help of two boys: the little piecer and the big or side piecer. The carriage carried up to 1,320 spindles and could be 150 feet (46 m) long, and would move forward and back a distance of 5 feet (1.5 m) four times a minute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cotton-spinning machinery</span> Machinery used to spin cotton

Cotton-spinning machinery is machines which process prepared cotton roving into workable yarn or thread. Such machinery can be dated back centuries. During the 18th and 19th centuries, as part of the Industrial Revolution cotton-spinning machinery was developed to bring mass production to the cotton industry. Cotton spinning machinery was installed in large factories, commonly known as cotton mills.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hand spinning</span> Method of turning fiber into thread

Spinning is an ancient textile art in which plant, animal or synthetic fibres are drawn out and twisted together to form yarn. For thousands of years, fibre was spun by hand using simple tools, the spindle and distaff. After the introduction of the spinning wheel in the 13th century, the output of individual spinners increased dramatically. Mass production later arose in the 18th century with the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. Hand-spinning remains a popular handicraft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Combing</span> Method of preparing fiber for spinning

Combing is a method for preparing carded fibre for spinning. Combing aligns fibers in parallel before spinning to produce a smoother, stronger, and more lustrous yarn. The process of combing is accompanied by gilling, a process of evening out carded or combed top making it suitable for spinning. Combing separates out short fibres by means of a rotating ring or rectilinear row of steel pins. The fibres in the 'top' it produces have been straightened and lie parallel to each other. When combing wool, the discarded short fibres are called noils, and are ground up into shoddy.

Decatising or decatizing, also known as crabbing, blowing, and decating, is the process of making permanent a textile finish on a cloth, so that it does not shrink during garment making. The word comes from the French décatir, which means to remove the cati or finish of the wool. Though used mainly for wool, the term is also applied to processes performed on fabrics of other fibers, such as cotton, linen or polyester. Crabbing and blowing are minor variations on the general process for wool, which is to roll the cloth onto a roller and blow steam through it.

A sliver is a long bundle of fibre that is generally used to spin yarn. A sliver is created by carding or combing the fibre, which is then drawn into long strips where the fibre is parallel. When sliver is drawn further and given a slight twist, it becomes roving.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helmshore Mills Textile Museum</span> Wool and cotton mills in Lancashire, England

Helmshore Mills are two mills built on the River Ogden in Helmshore, Lancashire. Higher Mill was built in 1796 for William Turner, and Whitaker's Mill was built in the 1820s by the Turner family. In their early life they alternated between working wool and cotton. By 1920 they were working shoddy as condensor mule mills; and equipment has been preserved and is still used. The mills closed in 1967 and they were taken over by the Higher Mills Trust, whose trustees included historian and author Chris Aspin and politician Dr Rhodes Boyson, who maintained it as a museum. The mills are said to the most original and best-preserved examples of both cotton spinning and woollen fulling left in the country that are still operational.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nap (fabric)</span> Raised fibers on the surface of a textile, or the directionality of such a raised surface

Primarily, nap is the raised (fuzzy) surface on certain kinds of cloth, such as velvet or moleskin. Nap can refer additionally to other surfaces that look like the surface of a napped cloth, such as the surface of a felt or beaver hat.

Textile manufacturing is one of the oldest human activities. The oldest known textiles date back to about 5000 B.C. In order to make textiles, the first requirement is a source of fibre from which a yarn can be made, primarily by spinning. The yarn is processed by knitting or weaving to create cloth. The machine used for weaving is the loom. Cloth is finished by what are described as wet process to become fabric. The fabric may be dyed, printed or decorated by embroidering with coloured yarns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ring spinning</span> Method of spinning fibres

Ring spinning is a spindle-based method of spinning fibres, such as cotton, flax or wool, to make a yarn. The ring frame developed from the throstle frame, which in its turn was a descendant of Arkwright's water frame. Ring spinning is a continuous process, unlike mule spinning which uses an intermittent action. In ring spinning, the roving is first attenuated by using drawing rollers, then spun and wound around a rotating spindle which in its turn is contained within an independently rotating ring flyer. Traditionally ring frames could only be used for the coarser counts, but they could be attended by semi-skilled labour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bradford Industrial Museum</span> Industrial museum, Mill museum, Textile museum, in Eccleshill, Bradford

Bradford Industrial Museum, established 1974 in Moorside Mills, Eccleshill, Bradford, United Kingdom, specializes in relics of local industry, especially printing and textile machinery, kept in working condition for regular demonstrations to the public. There is a Horse Emporium in the old canteen block plus a shop in the mill, and entry is free of charge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doffing cylinder</span> Textile manufacturing piece

A doffing cylinder, also called doffing roller or commonly just doffer is a component used in textile mills to remove fiber from the main cylinder of a card, on which the fibers have been straightened and aligned. The main cylinder of the card will have one or two doffers that comb and remove the fiber. The doffer is set with pins that hold the fiber, which is then removed by a comb or knife and fed into the next stage of production. Doffers are also used in cotton pickers and other machinery that handle fiber.

Doubling is a textile industry term synonymous with combining. It can be used for various processes during spinning. During the carding stage, several sources of roving are doubled together and drawn, to remove variations in thickness. After spinning, yarn is doubled for many reasons. Yarn may be doubled to produce warp for weaving, to make cotton for lace, crochet and knitting. It is used for embroidery threads and sewing threads, for example: sewing thread is usually 6-cable thread. Two threads of spun 60s cotton are twisted together, and three of these double threads are twisted into a cable, of what is now 5s yarn. This is mercerised, gassed and wound onto a bobbin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woollen industry in Wales</span> Overview of the woollen industry in Wales

The woollen industry in Wales was at times the country's most important industry, though it often struggled to compete with the better-funded woollen mills in the north of England, and almost disappeared during the 20th century. There is continued demand for quality Welsh woollen products.

References

Notes

  1. Yilmaz, Nasire Deniz; Powell (2005). "The Technology of Terry Towel production" (PDF). Journal of Textile and Apparel, Technology and Management. 4 (4). North Carolina Stare University.
  2. "Preparing Wool for Handspinning". La Hottée. 27 July 2007. Archived from the original on 2014-08-22. Retrieved 2014-09-16.
  3. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Carding"  . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  4. 1 2 3 Baber, Zaheer (1996). The Science of Empire: Scientific Knowledge, Civilisation, and Colonial Rule in India. the State University of New York Press. p. 57. ISBN   0-7914-2919-9.
  5. 1 2 Richards 1972, p. 73.
  6. Wadsworth, A. P.; Mann, J. de L. (1931). The Cotton Industry and Industrial Lancashire. Manchester University Press. pp. 419–448.
  7. Fitton, R. S.; Wadsworth, A. P. (1958). The Strutts and the Arkwrights 1758-1830: a Study in the Early Factory System. Manchester University Press. pp. 65–80.
  8. 1 2 3 Richards 1972, p. 74.
  9. Jenkins, J. Geraint (1969). The Welsh Woollen Industry. Cardiff. pp. 33–4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  10. Williams, Richard (1894). Montgomeryshire worthies. Newtown: Phillips & Son. p. 308.
  11. Collier 1970, pp. 66, 67
  12. Collier 1970 , p. 69
  13. Collier 1970 , pp. 70
  14. Hills 1993 , p. 4
  15. Campbell, Gordon (2006). The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts, Volume 1. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-518948-3.
  16. Matherne, Patrick. "What is Carding" . Retrieved 8 May 2012.

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