Notes about fleeces and combs

came across this interesting video about wool and goat combing, it was made a while ago

It has several interesting points and tests

1) The spinner talks in Russian and in this video firstly she said she just got these new combs, so it's the new tool for her (about a year ago). Quite large combs too. Not medium and not mini I have (for Shetland wool for example or merino)
After that she tests couple of types of wool and she notes very carefully weighting the % of the useful combed rowing versus what is remaining.
These notes are very useful for spinners who start working with combs. These 2 comb sets are what most western spinners would be using because single triangular comb is not common

2) First white sheep wool type tested is wool with fiber and guard hair, some kind of local wool from southern Russia, the test described talks about trying to separate wool and guard hairs. I think I did see some videos on youtube about using combs to separate wool and guard hair if and only if these 2 parts had different length. It is not quite clear what was the length of the fiber and the guard hair in the white sample, kind of looks like guard hair might be slightly longer but it's very hard to see to tell.
Her wool also does not appear it was washed in uniform locks (like some would do that using mesh wash bags to preserve the locks better). Not quite clear what the rowing versus remaining % is, she mentions that it was too much remaining on the combs

2)
The second test starts about 5:20 and it's more gray sheep wool she describes as possibly a merino cross. She says she does prefer hand cards to produce combed rowing.
she said combed rowing for that sample was 7gr combed and 13 grams remaining
On hand cards she is mentioning she has 5 gr remaining and 15gr rowing and she believes 5rg could be still improved

3) 3-rd test starts at about 10:37 and is for hand carded goat down and she makes combed rowing from that using these combs and has very little waste. Results in nice combed sliver. That test is interesting. Take a look, I did not see that done before with the goat down. It looks more like what Shetland spinner does starting from the locks (on mini combs, they go for 3-4 locks or so, very small amounts).
The spinner is self taught and quite particular about the job she does, wants to get out of that rowing every imperfection

Here is the video about processing Shetland fleece locks by Sue Macniven

the combed sliver has little waste and another video below does explain why (about weak spot in that particular fleece type)

Here is the video demonstrating use of larger combs by Susan McFarland

+[Here is the video demonstrating use of larger combs by Susan McFarland][3]
about how not to end up with 50% of the fiber remaining on combs, also combing locks. If you see she barely catches the cut end by the tines, not too much (it is hard when it's too much),


This particular video shows the rise of Shetland fleece aka the weak spot

 (that's the thing where the waste comes from) and how to get uniform locks from the fleece.

I'm mentioning here wool longer as substitute for long goat down fiber is one can not get a hold of goat down, and Shetland as one of the substitutes for finer shawls.


When it comes to Orenburg triangular combs on this side of the pond Valkyrie Superfine Combs is still the closest thing in 2 combs sets. Like these in the video (processing paco-vicuna, it is closest thing to orenburg goat down at 14 micron, but... orenburg goat down is combed, so it's got no cut side, paco vicuna is sheered so it does have the cut side).

One of the reasons why triangular comb is used traditionally is the orenburg down is combed and this fiber is pulled from both sides of the comb (no cut side to lash on the comb so it is put in the middle so the waste sits in the middle nice and put). Here is a very good video regarding that.
Traditional orenburg triangle comb. Rosa Gumerova.

Video shows picking guard hair, then combing (down is combed trice, however when 100% goat down shawl was made for me and orenburg museum that down was combed 7-9 times), also at 10:46-ish they show that comb used to comb down from goats and one guy in the class said he uses that thing to pick gooseberries into a basket and that works real well.