To thoroughly understand how combing machines carry out the combing process, it is worth mentioning how wool was manually combed in the past. This process included three main operations and precisely:
1. introduction of the fibre tuft in the comb;
2. combing of the head of the fibre tuft;
3. extraction and combing of the tail of the fibre tuft 1) Introduction of the fibre tuft in the comb (Figure 1). The “p” comb was fixed to a wall with the needles tips directed upwards; the comber took a tuft of fibres and inserted it on the comb so that the fibre tails protruded from the side of the comb in front of the wall.

Fig. 1 Introduction of the tuft

2) Combing of the head of the fibre tuft (Figure 2). An “m” mobile comb was then repeatedly passed on the tuft retained by the “p” comb, taking care not to break the fibres. As a result, short fibres and impurities were separated from the “p” comb needles.

Fig. 2 - Combing of the tuft head

3) Extraction and combing of the tail of the fibre tuft (Figure 3). The comber, after seizing the head of the tuft, extracted it from the “p” comb forcing the fibres on the needles to slide. As a result, the short fibres and impurities of the tuft tail remained on the “p” comb needles.

Fig. 3 - Extraction and combing of the tuft tail

The cleaning of the two “p” and “m” combs from noils was carried out manually.
The main problem of hand combing lies in the fact that the combed material still included some impurities due to a small area of the tuft not subject to the action of the comb needles. The front part of the tuft was combed by the “m” comb and the rear by the “p” comb. Even if the needles of both combs were extremely thin, there was always a small area of the tuft that the needles of the “m” comb could not penetrate since it was too near to the “p” comb; furthermore the “p” comb needles did not exert any action since they did not touch this area of the tuft during the extraction; as a consequence, this area was never combed and eventual impurities were not eliminated.