Fiber retriever

In a carding machine having a feed roll and a lickerin roll equipped with a fiber retriever of the type comprising a pair of spaced planar partitions extending downwardly from the lickerin roll and a series of screen bars extending across the width of the lickerin roll forwardly of the planar partitions, the improvement comprising a vacuum source, a housing for enclosing the area beneath said bars and partitions wherein said bars and the upper edges of said partitions form the upper wall of said housing and one of said partitions forms the rear wall of said housing, said housing further including a front wall, a pair of end plates, a bottom wall, said bottom wall having an opening therein providing communication between the inside of said housing and said vacuum source, said rear wall including an opening through which air is drawn to replace the air drawn off by said vacuum source without disturbing the action of the fiber retriever, said bottom wall being hingedly attached at the front end thereof to the bottom edge of said front wall, and a removable retaining means holding said rear wall and the rear end of said bottom wall in a normally closed position, whereby when said retaining means is removed, said bottom wall swings away from said rear wall for access to the interior of said enclosure.