Atom – the mini drum carder

Small Machine: Big Possibilities!

We designed this delightful mini drum carder to be exactly the right size to join you on all your fibre adventures. Portability is the key, and Atom does this incredibly well: lightweight, compact, with a folding handle and easy-to-carry design, Atom can go anywhere you go! And we did not compromise in any way on functionality, quality, or performance. Just like the much larger Fusion Engine, Atom contains high-quality components and is made to last many years without needing any special maintenance.

Atom specialises in giving you excellent control over the carding of luxury fibres, allowing you to blend colours and easily create gradient batt sets. It does everything its larger sibling does, but in a small, manageable size giving you batts that are easy to handle and to spin from.

Here are some of the magic ingredients in the Atom

Hard wearing industrial-strength gears

We chose this material for the following reasons;

High tensile & shear strength

This engineering-grade material resists tooth breakage even under heavy pressure (you do not need to use heavy pressure!)

Wear resistance

It resists abrasion far better than softer plastics, ensuring the custom-cut teeth don’t degrade, even after years of heavy blending without needing messy grease or oil, which would otherwise attract loose fluff, VM, and dust. In all the years since we launched the Fusion Engine carder, not a single one has come back to us because of broken or worn gears! We are pleased to bring you the same reliability with the Atom.

Our signature ‘magic drums’

Our unique drum design ensures that your fibre stays on the drums and doesn’t drop off the edges to clog up the axle. This reduces cleaning and maintenance requirements.

Foldable Handle

This seems a simple thing, but don’t underestimate how useful it is to be able to flip up the handle of your carder to make it even more portable and compact!

High quality carding cloth

The special sharp tines on the licker-in drum which make carding smoother and more efficient;

The special size of the main Atom drum

This gives you a perfectly formed 20 gram (.7oz) batt, carded to perfection and ready to use with no need to split up for spinning. This keeps your edges smooth and tidy and you can create batt sets to bundle up in ready-to-use collections.

The cleaner brush

The Atom brush is super lightweight. We have made our own cast and powder coated handles that put your hand directly over your working area for less wrist strain and more control. It has a thin curved bamboo laminate mounting plate that is both light and very strong . The carding cloth is finished with plastic caps that give the cleaner brush clean and elegant lines with no cloth ends showing.

Portable Carding

You really can take this little carder anywhere! While it is clamp-able, you can also often use it without needing to clamp it; no table needed! Take it camping in the woods with you, or adventuring to your local spinning guild meeting. Out-and-about is Atom’s ‘thing’ and it is SO easy to pick up and go, even just to follow the sun around your own studio!

Special features of Atom

The size of the drum, plus the low ratio of 4:1 means you can take complete control of where the fibre is placed in your batt, and to what degree it gets carded (reduce the risk of over-carding your special fine fibres). These super fine fibres are often tricky to turn into big batts, they are fly-away fine and you can easily get into a fluffy tangle when trying to manage a huge batt-full of luxury fibres. During our testing of Atom, we found we could create the most gorgeous, perfectly blended batts of fibres heavy with luxurious silks, baby camel, alpaca cria, llama, and the finest of low micron merino. Atom is fantastic for this kind of carding, and a 20 gram batt of silks and camelids is the perfect size to manage for spinning very fine.

DETAILS AND SPECIFICATIONS

The Atom carder comes with:

Atom carder
Doffer
One bench clamp
Cleaning brush

The Atom specifications:

Length-width-height: 320mm (12.6″) x 180mm (7.09″) x 200mm including folded handle (7.87″)
Weight:2.5 kg or 2.7kg with accessories (5.5 lb / 5.95 lb)
Main drum diameter: 150mm (5.91″)
Cloth width: 70mm (2.76″)
Cloth pitch: 96tpi standard
Batt size (approximate): 20-25grams (.7oz-.9oz)

An optional carry bag will be available soon to make it easy to take your Atom out and about with you.