COMBING

Objective

1. To remove short fiber (the card sliver is stripped from residual foreign matter as well as
from fibres shorter than a pre-set length)
2. To improve fiber orientation (all the fibres are straightened and parallelized with respect
to the longitudinal axis of the sliver)

For high quality yarn, an extra process is introduced called combing. Combing enables
finer, stronger more uniform and less hairy yarns to be spun at better efficiency. Combing aligns
the fibres and removes, as noil, fibres generally shorter than about 20 to 30mm, vegetable matter
and neps.
The high degree of parallelism of the fibres and the reduction in the number of short
fibres in the combed sliver remarkably reduce the bulkiness and the hairiness of the sliver, and
increase the evenness of the yarn during the following processes.
The combing wool waste, called noils, is blended with other materials and used in the
carded spinning cycle; the combing waste of inferior quality is instead destined for the felt
industry.

Types of combing machine

1. Noble (circular),
2. Rectilinear (intermittent)
3. Lister (nip-motion)
4. Holden (square motion)

Today combing is largely done on the rectilinear comb, also called a Continental, French,
Heilmann or Schlumberger comb, the other types of combs no longer being manufactured. The
move to rectilinear combing is mainly due to the increasing use of dry-combed as opposed to oil-
combed tops and the shorter mean fibre lengths of the wool typically being processed nowadays.
Rectilinear combing is the only type described here.

The basic operations of a combing machine are:

 1. Feeding the slivers, typically 24 to 32, from balls or cans into the machine.
2. Holding the fibres and combing the free fibre ends by means of a cylinder covered with
progressively finer pins, any fibres not held being combed out as ‘noil’, along with neps
and vegetable matter
3. Gripping, by means of detaching (drawing off) rollers, and detaching the combed fringe
of parallel fibres (which is now free of short fibres and entanglements), holding it,
inserting the top comb, and pulling the fibres through the pins of the top comb, which
consists of a single row of pins, thereby removing any ungripped fibres as noil as well as
neps and vegetable matter
4. Laying the combed fringe on the previously combed fringes and forming a continuous
‘combed’ sliver from the tufts that have just been combed.

Brushes play an important role in combing; for example, in cleaning the circular and top
combs and drawing-off cylinder, and pressing the fibres into the circular comb. Automatic
adjustment of brushes, such as the nipper and circular brushes, and the simplified reversal and
removal of the latter represent important developments.
The comb also breaks fibres, the breakage rate decreasing with decreasing fibre length,
friction, combing intensity and with increasing fibre alignment and fibre strength. Fibre breakage
during combing can range from around 17 to 31%. Trailing hooks in the sliver fed to the comb
are less likely to be broken during combing, hence the importance of an uneven (odd) number of
gilling operations between carding and combing, assuming cans are used.
The percentages of fibres shorter than 30 mm and of noil are influenced by the following
factors:
1. Raw wool characteristics (e.g. fineness, staple length uniformity, staple strength,
character or style, including levels of vegetable matter and other impurities).
2. Quality of scouring and associated processes (greasy wool opening, wool felting. etc.).
3. Quality of carding (card production, setting, speed).
4. Quality of combing (comb setting, maintenance).

The amount of noil removed during combing may be expressed either as percentage noil or Tear
(ratio) as follows: