Raising

An Early's employee feeding blankets into a tandem gig, 2002 (copyright Mike French).

Three types of raising machines can be used for raising the nap on blankets, the single action, the double action and the teasel machine. The single and double action machines use carding wire to raise the nap. The teasel machine many years ago used the heads of imported teasels (thistle heads) to raise the nap on blankets, but now stainless steel ones that work on the same principle can be used. The single and double action raising machine, or 'gigs' as they are called in the trade, consist of a rotating cylinder, on the outer periphery of which are mounted 24 rollers each free to rotate on its own axis and covered in card wire. In the single action machine the cloth passes through the machine in the opposite direction to the revolution of the cylinder, but the 24 rollers travel in the same direction as the cloth passing through. The angle of the carding wire on the rollers points in the direction of rotation, this causes the nap to be produced on the finished blanket.

The double action machine differs from the single action in a few important respects. The cloth passes through the machine in the same direction as the cylinder revolves, but the rollers travel in the opposite direction. The rollers are covered in carding cloth arranged in two different ways, meaning that the angle of wires on adjacent rollers differs. This means that these rollers work against one and other, but the final result is that by doing this the nap on the blanket is of a much loftier pile than that produced by the single action machine. The natural teasel raising machine is fast falling out of use mainly because of the cost of natural teasels, and man made stainless steel are taking their place.

The working of the card wire raising machine is as follows: the cloth is stretched over the raising cylinder and round a series of driven tension and guide shafts which pull the cloth through the machine. As the cloth moves through the machine the cylinder revolves and the wire teeth lift the fibres from the weft yarns to form the fluffy nap of the blankets. Too much raising will weaken the blanket, but on the other hand too little raising will cause the blanket to be sub-standard.

Mike French