Carding With Dog Brushes

I have one set of wool carders that are about 60 pins per inch. They work to arrange the wool for the most part but do not fine tune the wool. I have been looking at what other possibilites for carding wool are. Drum carders are pretty expensive. Even the less expensive hand carders are at least $70 per pair. Which seems to be a bit more than I wanted to spend at this time anyway.

I had read about people using Dog slicker brushes as carders for wool and especially cotton. So today I went ahead and indulged in a pair that ended up costing me $17.38 with tax. Now they do not hold very much wool but they did seem to do a fair job. They seemed to do the best on the shorter staple fibers. It seemed that the longer the fiber the less effective that they were.

The fibers I have pictured are from left to right....suffolk, alpaca, cotton, Navajo Churro, alpaca. The Navajo Churro seemed to work the least well and the cotton worked up nicely. Now I do also have to add in that I am not well trained on hand cards. My skills are completely self taught with much more to learn. However, these brushes are a nice inexpensive way to start carding your own wool. Even if you get your raw fiber for free it often seems that the cost for processing it professionally sort of takes away all of the savings you get from the raw fleece in the first place.

If you can borrow someone else's Dog brushes first to give them a try or your own if you have them is the best way. If you do decide to buy your own at least they are not to highly priced.