Abstract

A randomizing web former is provided for producing webs with greater degrees of isotropy than heretofore by including both a carding element, such as a worker roll or a carding segment, and an aerodynamic, centrifugal randomizing web former, employing a jamming action and then free flight of the web to randomize, both on the same toothed cylinder. Usually, the fibrous flock is worked into an array of axially parallel fibers by an assemblage of sequentially arranged carding cylinders and cooperating carding elements such as carding worker rolls and or stationary carding segments similar to flats but of complementary arcuity to the cylinders. Thereupon the web is moved to a toothed roll having both a carding element and a web former either in that sequence or combined so as to act sequentially or concurrently. The resultant randomized web is then doffed.