The mother of invention...

I know quite a few American fibre artists, they keep making me jealous with their motorised drum carders. There are a multitude of drum carders that come with motors,  available over in the US, all of which would cost me a small fortune to import.
I spend hours at my carder so the idea of a motor to do the turning is quite appealing...

I'm off to try out a Louet motorised carder (the only sort I can buy in the UK) tomorrow, in the meantime however, I had an idea.

We picked up an old Singer sewing machine base at our local auction. Once I'd removed the machine (very old, worn and pretty useless), it's going to provide the power for my Minty drum carder. The main issue is making sure the treadle turns the licker in slowly enough, which is why the handle has been removed, and a wooden disc bolted on in its place. This acts as a gear so reduces the number of rotations on the main drum for every treadle. So far it seems to work, I've just ordered  new drive belt, as the old one was worn out, and the Pony bead poly-band I use on my wheels was too thin and stretchy, so there was a lot of slippage. 

If it doesn't work, well I can just unscrew the disc, and screw the handle back on.