First time I cleaned a rescued fedora

[TheSeeker]

I wanted to try cleaning a fedora. I found an old Super Barbisio that was once sold by Radiconcini Italy. It is wool and black. The hat looked fine, but dirty. Rather than having a professional cleaning, I did the DIY with Coleman fuel. I used a 5 gallon bucket, lid, and used a gallon of fuel from Walmart. I had my doubts! After a few hours of soaking and shaking the bucket like a washing machine, I removed the hat and let it drain. Then let it dry for several hours. The result was an amazing success. No shape lost, looks and feels like new. The liner even looks nice. No damage to leather sweat band as well. So, another nice hat added to collection. Plus, I have confidence if I ever need to clean a hat. I was worried about odor, but after two days no odor from cleaning. It feels and fits great. I would do it again.

 

[jackadven]

It's great to see Ermatinger's methods being used and validated today. They were quite shocking to me when I first read them.

 

[Cuvier]

Well dang. I should have done that vs sending my hat off for professional cleaning. Oh well.

 

[Judgmentalist]

Well dang. I should have done that vs sending my hat off for professional cleaning. Oh well.

I’m not usually a DIY guy, and I also usually prefer to buy new and buy exactly what I want/need as opposed to hunting and pecking.

Having said that, particularly with hats it seems that vintage quality is almost universally higher than modern quality at reasonable prices due to economies of scale which no longer exist in the industry.

True dress-finish hats which were almost literally a dime a dozen in 1932 are “plan ahead” level purchases these days (at least in my tax bracket lol) , and thin on the ground, at that, western-style hats and finish seemingly being orders of magnitude more popular.

Usually in this situation I find that the search for the holy grail ends up becoming a hobby in itself, entirely separate from what I was originally trying to accomplish.

Does all that sound pretty close?

I’ve got a hat coming that will need a little attention, and I’m looking forward to digging into this more later. Sounds interesting.

 

[Judgmentalist]

Can someone reference the source material for this cleaning method, please and thank you? It sounds suspiciously like soaking a hat in fuel oil is a good idea, which idea I am struggling to come to terms with. Lol

 

[jeffgarf]

Can someone reference the source material for this cleaning method, please and thank you? It sounds suspiciously like soaking a hat in fuel oil is a good idea, which idea I am struggling to come to terms with. Lol

There are entire threads devoted to this on this forum.

 

[Judgmentalist]

There are entire threads devoted to this on this forum.

I’m working my way around. I’m finding this forum atypically difficult to navigate for some reason. Presumably because I just haven’t worked out all the kinks yet. Most of the time when I find a contributor whose posts I’m particularly interested in there is a way to go back and read all their older posts - haven’t been able to make that work here yet. The search feature is also a challenge. For example, I know there’s a guy named Ermatinger (sp? Not looking at it at the moment) who apparently has a book that covers cleaning hats with gas, but I haven’t found the book itself yet. There are several makers here that I’ve seen referenced that I haven’t ferreted out yet, and so on. I’ll get there.

 

[jeffgarf]

Here is the book - https://openlibrary.org/books/OL6615579M/Scientific_hat_finishing_and_renovating

Make sure you search the advanced search feature and select only the hat forum threads. Those choices can be made in the advanced search.

See also - Thread 'STEP BY STEP NAPTHA BATH' https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/step-by-step-naptha-bath.43157/

 

[Hurricane Jack]

The search feature is also a challenge.

Go to Google & type in your query followed by ,Fedora Lounge.

 

[hatsRme]

I’m working my way around. I’m finding this forum atypically difficult to navigate for some reason. Presumably because I just haven’t worked out all the kinks yet. Most of the time when I find a contributor whose posts I’m particularly interested in there is a way to go back and read all their older posts - haven’t been able to make that work here yet. The search feature is also a challenge. For example, I know there’s a guy named Ermatinger (sp? Not looking at it at the moment) who apparently has a book that covers cleaning hats with gas, but I haven’t found the book itself yet. There are several makers here that I’ve seen referenced that I haven’t ferreted out yet, and so on. I’ll get there.

Here is a good place to begin...
https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/step-by-step-naptha-bath.43157/

 

[Frunobulax]

I’m working my way around. I’m finding this forum atypically difficult to navigate for some reason. Presumably because I just haven’t worked out all the kinks yet. Most of the time when I find a contributor whose posts I’m particularly interested in there is a way to go back and read all their older posts - haven’t been able to make that work here yet. The search feature is also a challenge. For example, I know there’s a guy named Ermatinger (sp? Not looking at it at the moment) who apparently has a book that covers cleaning hats with gas, but I haven’t found the book itself yet. There are several makers here that I’ve seen referenced that I haven’t ferreted out yet, and so on. I’ll get there.

This used to be a sticky in the hat forum, but doesn't get the love it once did.

Read every one of these threads in their entirety.

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/links-to-hat-threads.112725/

 

[Judgmentalist]

This used to be a sticky in the hat forum, but doesn't get the love it once did.

Read every one of these threads in their entirety.

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/links-to-hat-threads.112725/

Gold mine thank you - back in six months lol

 

[blewnote]

This used to be a sticky in the hat forum, but doesn't get the love it once did.

Read every one of these threads in their entirety.

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/links-to-hat-threads.112725/

And put on your patient hat because most of them are discussions about

Openrd.jpg

or

with the occasional picture of a hat. And any link you click on will bring you to

But if you can stand scrolling through pages of discussion about images you can't see and links to pages you can't get to, and a fair number of arguments about silly things you will be able to learn some useful info.

I'd suggest that anything you find interesting you bookmark, because once you pass it by it may be impossible to find again. I'm still trying to find the picture of a Stetson Royal DeLuxe homburg that doesn't have the St Regis model on the sweatband but does have it on the box the hat was sold in.