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Last week I had the privilege of teaching two separate four hour sessions of carding 101 to a total of forty employees at a nonwoven company.  The course is a general overview of what a roller top card is and how it works.  I only wish someone had taught me about cards when I started working in nonwovens.  No one told me that card wire has a direction to it and I nearly lost my hand when brushing a card.  The brush completely disappeared between the cylinder and the doffer and it was a miracle my hand did not get caught.  

The course explores a card as being made up of various systems such as feed systems, drives, vacuums, take-offs, wire, etc.  Eventually I plan to present the course through the internet so an employee can take it at their convenience over a period of several weeks.  Until then, I am available to present the course at a plant site or over the internet via skype.  Contact me if interested or for references.

Many thanks to Dan Feroe at NSC, Andy Riley at Dilo, Jim Greene at Trutzschler, and Bill Traynham at Beckhert for information they supplied.

Most of us know of Bekaert as a card wire company located in Simpsonville, South Carolina.  However, that location is a branch of a much larger Bekaert company that is headquartered in Belgium.  Worldwide the Beckaert company employees 28,000 people.  They specialize in products utilizing drawn wire.  Their wire is untilzed in many products.  They say that one in every four tires made in the world is made with Beckert steel tire cord. 

The card wire company had its beginnings as the Ashworth Company and was located in Greenville , South Carolina.  The company was acquired by ECC 1n 1995 and operated under the ECC name for about five years but been owned by Beckaert since then.  Here is the link to their nonwovens card wire web site.

Graf is a Swiss company that has been servicing the carding industry since 1917. Their location in the USA is in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  If you go to this page on their web site you can download several pdf files about their wire and products.

One of their products that I have used and can recommend is their machine for tooling trash out of card wire.  You can se it here.  It does a great job removing plastic splinters, wood, and fiber buildup from main cylinders, workers, and doffers.

Trutzschler is a German company that makes spinning capital equipment, nonwoven capital equipment, and card wire.  In the past few years they have increased their presence in the nonwovens industry through acquisitions and are now able to offer complete nonwovens lines.

Years ago they acquired the overseas assets of the John D Hollingsworth Company.  This gave them plants and outlets around the world for the manufacture and distribution of card wire.  Hollingsworth was for many years the major supplier of card wire within the USA.  After the death of Mr. Hollingsworth and the donation of his assets to charity, much of the USA business began to decline.  Trutzschler finally acquired the remaining card wire assets in the USA in Late 2009.  Trutzschler has had a manufacturing plant in Charlotte, North Carloina for many years. The plant is called American-Truetzschler and the wire production lines from Hollingsworth were moved there.  Trutzschler has also opened a wiring plant near the Greenville-Spartanburg jetport in South Carolina.  Trutzschler sells their wire in the USA through the Louis P Batson Company in Greenville, South Carolina.  

In reviewing the definitions on my web site I realized I had defined various parts of a card, but had not given a definition for the card itself. Here is that definition.

                   This week's definition