Is the Uncle Kolya Drum Carder Worth It? Tour de Fleece Part 2 

I have used a drum carder for years. Some tips can save wear on your carding cloth and make a more pleasant experience. Put time into preparing your fiber. Pull your wool locks apart sideways and don’t put too much fiber in at a time .Be gentle, don’t force the fiber. What you do to prepare the wool before you put it through makes a difference on the quality of the bat coming out. Pulling the whole bat off before making a rollag is easier. I prefer not to make a rollag (the fibers are nicely parallel) I roll the batt sideways and predraft the fiber into a continuous, very long roving.

Hi, Here a few tips which hopefully make your life easier😉 When you turn the crank standing on the right side of the drum feeding in fleece, don't reposition yourself. Just take the brush into your left hand while turning. I am right handed too and it's easy to do. i usually slip the brush under the table gap, where you feed the fleece on top, tines down. This way it is out of the way and I can grab it straight facing the right direction when packing the fibre on the drum. If you want to take rolags of it, get yourself one of the under the door rubber stopper and squish it between the drum wall and outside wall. Or wherever most handy. And as you noticed the carder will not flip, if you here too stays put on the crank handle side and lift the fleece of like straight ahead right hand sided, or turn your body slightly to the right and a little closer to the feed in side. You will get the hang on it 😊 There is no way otherwise the drum wouldn't flip, as long it is not fixed on both sites. One more thing. To get a nice smooth batt feed the fibre longwise in after the first time. I also tear lenght wise strips off the batt and then draft them out before each new feed in. That way you lose even more veggie matter during the process. I am sorry I wrote in the hurry. So don't mind any mistakes please. It is not my native language, and in the hurry I don't think too well when writing and without checking again. However, If you have any more questions don't hesitate. It is always the way later on one remembers more. Is it not?😊 Best wishes and lots of fun from Australia 🦘. Btw. i love my carder. I have the same now for about 4-5 years, and still strong standing

To stop the drum carder from moving when you’re making rolags,you can use a rubber door stop and wedge it between the drum and the supporting wall. I saw this on other videos where folks were making rolags off their carders so I tried it. It works very well. I like the rubber wedge one with a metal loop at the top to make it easier to remove. I bought mine off Amazon. 😊

Thank you for this review, it is so helpful.

Very interesting video.. you might have had an easier time making rolags if you had taken the batt off altogether. Or you could split the batt into lengths and do a worsted spring.

Thank you so much for this. I've been looking for a cheaper drumcarder. I'll check this out. 😃

Ps. If anything doesn't make sense I wrote, please let me know. So I will take more time to write in proper grammar, vocabulary, and better explanation.

Thank you for the reviews -- very helpful. Will you wheel still work if you only use one treadle? I can do that with my double treadle wheel -- and always do, because the double treadle is hard on my back.

I had similar problems using the double treadles on my sonata. I found that I could do one treadle at a time when my hips got tired from doing both at once. I'm not sure if the fantasia would be agreeable to that, but it's worth trying. Also thank you for the video, I might check this carder out now.