$750.00
Spin utterly unique yarn with the exact fiber blend of your choice. Make your own gorgeous blended batts for fun and profit! Yay! I'm well pleased to offer this amazing drum carder for sale. It's a workhorse top of the line manual model with all available Strauch features including the Brush Attachment.
Having a chain as the drive mechanism provides a constant positive non-slipping action while carding and is far superior to belt drives. It cranks like a dream, which less effort than belt drive or bearing-loaded models.
The wood frame is ash with a warm honey-oak finish. It has a 7" diameter x 7-3/4" wide working drum and a 2" diameter x 8" wide licker drum producing a batt approximately 7" wide x 22" long. The overall length of the machine is 24" and 11-1/2" wide with a 6" high frame. An important feature: Since the swing of the handle clears the table surface, the carder can be placed anywhere on the work surface. It's a nice, heavy unit and is stable even without the included table clamps.
This unit is equipped with 128 teeth psi card cloth and "Slicker-Licker" (SL), unique to the Strauch carders. Instead of having the same wire pin teeth as the main drum, which tend to grab the fiber as you card it in, requiring you to build up a certain level of fibers, the Slicker-Licker has widely-spaced, sharp blade-like teeth that feed in the fiber smoothly without catching it. They also make it easy to tell when the main drum is full to capacity--only then will fiber start to catch on the licker-in.
The 6" high frame permits a larger sprocket on the small drum. This makes a 5:1 ratio between the drums, which allows more carding action per revolution. This 5:1 ratio allows for minimal turning of the large drum to produce an excellent, well blended batt; 2-3 passes are sufficient.
The fine fiber brush attachment (optional on other Strauch carders) prevents fine and short fibers from flying away as you card. It smooths down fiber andd packs it onto the main drum, allowing you to load up more fiber into your batt, even with very fine or fluffy fibers, like alpaca or mohair. It can flip back if you don't want to use it, or to remove the batt.
I love the way this carder really pulls in the fiber, how easy it is to crank, and how well built it is. It's an excellent production carder. It's a pleasure to use. Strauch carders can be motorized by you (a diagram and recommendations are here: http://www.strauchfiber.com/dc_motorizing.htm).
I'm currently offering $10 U.S. Shipping AND a full two pounds of mixed fibers--enough for a dozen to 20 batts--to get you started carding and blending. The fibers shown are just an example and will vary. Fibers will be labeled. You'll get a mix of commercially and hand-dyed fiber, scoured fleece, natural colored and dyed tops, sparkle, silk, bamboo, blending nylon, locks, and odds and ends, so you can start playing right away!
Special tools included with each "Finest" are:
-The popular Knuckle-Saving-Batt-Pick, an invaluable tool for removing the batt without damage to the equipment or the user.
-Doffer/Cleaner Brush to thoroughly and easily clean any residual fibers from the carding drum.
-A small cleaner/dabber brush for use on the licker drum (It's also great for cleaning off your work surface)
-The new Teasing Tool, which clamps to your work-surface or one-handed teasing. Use it to open locks and tease fiber prior to carding (scoured fleece or locks, not necessary for blending commercial or carder fiber).
-Table clamps to secure the carder to the work surface, if desired.