Dressmaking 
 
 
   (4) Drying.-Drying must follow scouring and may be 
done in various ways, but, whatever the method, care must 
be taken to maintain the correct amount of heat and mois- 
ture. A drier may be attached to the washer or it may be 
a separate machine. 
   One type of drier frequently used has a self-feed and a 
chamber which is kept at a certain temperature by steam- 
pipes, an inlet for fresh air, and an outlet for hot, moisture- 
laden air. In this chamber is a travelling wire apron with 
a fan underneath. The feed delivers the wool in regular 
amount to the apron, which carries it as a rather thin web 
forward through the heated chamber and dries it. 
   (5) Oiling.-Wool loses its natural oil in the scouring, 
and some must be added to make the fibre sufficiently soft 
and pliable and prevent static electricity, so that: it will go 
through the remaining processes without injury. The oil 
is applied either by hand or by a simple spraying appara- 
tus attached to some machine. Different oils, but usually 
olive-oil, are used in different mills. 
   (6) Carding.-Preparing.-After the drying and oiling 
the fibre is put through a carding-machine or a set of pre- 
parers. The choice of the machine used depends on the 
kind of fibre to be manufactured; that is, the cards are used 
for the medium and fine wools, the preparers for the longer 
wools, twelve inches or fourteen inches, and for mohair and 
alpaca, for which the cards are not suited. 
  About nine-tenths of all the worsteds are carded. The 
purpose of both the cards and the preparers is the same. 
They separate and clean the tangled fibres and deliver them 
in a continuous strand called a sliver. 
   (a) Cards.-A single or double cylinder card may be 
used. The double-cylinder card differs from the single only 
in having two large cylinders rather than one. These are 
connected by a doffer and an angle-stripper, which pass 
the fibre from the first to the second cylinder. The fibre 
is first delivered by an automatic feed to cylinders called 
licker-ins, which begin the opening and cleaning. On the 
licker-ins are burr-guards which knock off any burrs left in 
the w~ol. The large chlinders with their sets of workers and 
 
 
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