Napping Machine

A napping machine, historically called a gig mill or gigging machine, raises a soft, fuzzy surface nap on woven woolen cloth by drawing the fabric across a rotating cylinder studded with teasels, the small hooked seed heads of the teasel plant, which catch and pull individual fibers up out of the weave without cutting them. The gig mill was developed and mechanized during the medieval and early modern periods, working much like a large carding machine with teasel-covered drums turning against the cloth as it passed through, and it produced the raised, brushed finish characteristic of fabrics such as melton, beaver cloth and chinchilla wool. Because raising too aggressively could weaken or tear the cloth, gig mills provoked recurring labor disputes in the English cloth trade over their pace and safety even as they spread; natural teasels were eventually replaced in most machines by rows of fine bent metal wire performing the same raising action, and the finishing step itself, whether teasel or wire, is still called napping or raising today.