Spinners have several ways in which to process fleece for spinning. We have hand cards, drum carders, wool combs, and flick cards. While all of these tools do a good job of preparing fibers for spinning, the often overlooked flick carder is the only tool that will remove tippy ends, second cuts, vegetable matter contamination, dirt, and general crud from locks of fleece and leave the fibers nicely organized for spinning with minimal time spent on the preparation. Another advantage of the flick card lies in it’s relatively low cost when compared to that of other processing equipment.

Flick cards come in varying sizes from tiny little things good for flicking only a small lock at a time to larger sizes capable of handling several locks with ease. Some come with a piece of leather or canvas to card against but most do not. If you don’t have access to a flick card, a slicker brush used for dog grooming makes a good substitute.

Using a flick card is quite easy. Place a piece of leather or canvas on your knee, grasp a lock of fleece by the butt (cut) end and brush the flick card through the tip end. Flip the lock over and brush the other side of the tip end. Then turn the lock around so you’re grasping the brushed tip end and brush both sides of the butt end. Done. The lock is ready to spin. You can either spin the locks as they are flicked or set them aside to spin up after you have a supply flicked. If you want to build up a supply, lay the locks in a basket or box with all the tip ends oriented in the same direction so they will be spun in the same direction.

Note: The leather or canvas is not needed for flick carding but do be aware that the teeth of the carding cloth can and will catch fibers of your clothing and cause damage.

Since flick carding removes so much VM and dirt from the fleece, you may want to put newspaper or an old sheet on the floor of your work area for easy clean up later. Another good way to keep your work area clean is to keep a little hand vacuum handy.

Since flick carding removes any short fibers and aligns the fibers so they are parallel, the preparation is worsted. If a woolen preparation is desired, simply roll the flicked locks as you would roll a hand carded rolag for woolen spinning.