Wool For Brains

I’ve had my Ashford drum carder since May 2007. Recently it’s been not behaving as it should, sometimes the licker in (front drum) doesn’t turn because the drive band scoots along without turning the wheel on the side that turns the drum. My diagnosis was that the drive band had stretched which didn’t surprise me because I don’t take it off when I put the carder away. I know that I should but because I struggle to get the thing back on again I decided long ago that I’d leave it on all the time and just replace it when the time came. When I was using it last week I could hear that the teeth on the two drums were just catching at one point so it was time for some adjustment.

The Ashford web site has copies of the assembly instructions for all of their products which is useful for those of us that don’t keep hold of pieces of paper for more than two minutes together. While I was fiddling with the licker in to get it aligned properly, it struck me that maybe the reason the drive band wasn’t turning the front drum was that the front drum was not exactly spinning freely, probably as a result of the fluff I could see jammed around the axle. It was clear that what was needed here was a proper clean, the sort that starts with a screwdriver and moves on to partial disassembly. Happily the last part of the instructions show you how to do it and I can report that it is quite straightforward, especially when you get someone else to do it for you (I knit his socks, it’s a two way thing).

The part that I could never have managed myself was getting the handle off, I couldn’t remember how it went on and the instructions didn’t spell out that it was screwed on. Once we’d managed to get that off everything else was straightforward, it’s not the sort of disassembly where small parts fly off around the room. After taking out all five screws the side of the carder that has the handle on comes off and then you can prise off both drums and get to any fibre that’s accumulated there. This pile was off one side of the axle of the front drum, the other side was not quite as fluffy but still nothing to be proud of. Even with long tweezers it is really difficult to remove stray fibres that get wrapped around the axle, it’s much easier to do it when the drum is out of the way.

The carder instructions also show you where you should be oiling it. It’s clearly been a while since I oiled mine, the black line on the left is where the oil hole is jam packed with the lint slug on the right. I’m planning on making 2010 the year of frequent oiling, I suspect that if  I oil it twice it will be more frequent than it has been getting. In future we’ll be taking this apart more often than every two and a half years. Now that I’ve seen it done I’d have no fears about doing it myself, I was worried that I’d get the drums on back to front (they will only go on one way) and that when it came apart there would be a shower of washers that I’d never manage to get back. When it comes apart nothing moves, the drums hang there and have to be prised off with the handle.

When we got it back together (with no spare parts left over) it was better but the licker in still wasn’t turning properly. Then the split in the drive band became so big that the band broke, once it was rejoined with a sliver taken out the whole thing was perfect. My original diagnosis may have been right after all but there’s no disputing that it did need a proper clean.