Card cover with fiber-conveying channels

Claim 1

Carding apparatus comprising: a. a support member; b. a carding cylinder rotatably mounted on said support member; c. means for feeding partially opened fibers to the carding cylinder comprising a feed plate and a worker roll rotatably mounted on said support member adjacent and axially parallel to said carding cylinder, said worker roll being provided with a surface which will offer resistance to tufts of fiber being carried by the carding cylinder, said feed plate being located tangentially adjacent the fiber-feed end of the worker roll, said feed plate being so disposed as to present partially opened fibers to the carding cylinder, said carding cylinder and worker roll coacting to separate said partially opened fibers; d. separate means for rotating said carding cylinder and worker wall; and e. upper and lower cover means together enclosing substantially all of the periphery of the carding cylinder, each of said cover means having an inner surface adjacent to and contoured to conform to the surface of said carding cylinder, the upper cover means being provided on the surface adjacent the carding cylinder with a plurality of smooth, uniformly spaced, curvilinearly parallel fiber conveying channels disposed axially in a skewed array across said surface to form an interrupted helical screw thread with termini adjacent opposite ends of said upper cover means and with an exit port for separated fibers at one of said termini, said upper cover means coacting with the rotating carding cylinder to convey fibers in a substantially helical path around and across said carding cylinder.