Drumcarders
Louët has five different drumcarders: the Classic, Standard, Junior (or Roving), Elite and Elektrical drumcarder. They are made of laminated birch and have a hard white coating. The drums of the carders are 19 cm (7 1/2”) wide, except for the drum of the Junior (10 cm (4”) wide). In order to ensure a long life, the teeth on all Louët carders are made of high grade plated steel wire. All gearboxes, except for the Elite drumcarder, are enclosed to prevent fibers entering the gear system.
The Classic and Elektrical drumcarder have a fine cloth of 46 teeth per square inch, so you can easily card wool and other coarse fibers. The Standard and Junior drumcarders have an extra fine cloth (72 teeth per square inch). The advantage of this extra fine cloth is that you also can perfectly card very fine fibers. The Elite drumcarder has been developed with the new blending techniques in mind. The large drum has an extra fine cloth (72 teeth per square inch) and the small drum, or licker-in, has a special cloth that avoids the build-up of costly fibers. It has two different gear ratios (1:6 and 1:9) and the large feed-tray makes it easier to blend the fibers.
The Elektrical drumcarder is available with a 115 V or a 230 V motor. The motor drives the large drum with V-belt system, coupled to the enclosed gear system, at approximately 90 r.p.m. The motor has a thermal safety and the drums are covered with a transparent plastic protection cover for extra safety while carding. The electric carder stands on buffers and because of its weight of approximately 21 kg (46 lb), it doesn’t need to be clamped to a table.
All drumcarders are equipped with a doffer brush, doffer pin and two table clamps to clamp it onto a sturdy table. An instruction manual written by well known author and fiber artist Deb Menz is included with all drumcarders.
For drumcarders it is common to mention the gear ratio that drives the licker-in when you rotate the large drum. For the Elite drumcarder the ratio is 6:1 or 9:1, for the other drumcarders it is 3.8:1.
However, what really counts for carding is the ratio of the surface speed of both drums. You get this by multiplying the gear ratio with the ratio of the diameters of the large drum and the licker-in. This surface speed ratio is 9:1 for the Classic and Elektrical drumcarder and 12:1 for the Standard and Junior drumcarder. The Elite drumcarder has two surface speed ratios; 23:1 and 34:1.