hats in the heat : with or without liner ?

[indyhan]

hello there hat gang

i can't quite bring myself to ditch my felt fedoras for a straw hat when heat hits in summer (and even in spring)

in your experience would you say removing the liner in a hat makes a noticeable difference comfortwise ?

i like a hat with a nice liner, but i'm quite willing to do without the extra snazzyness if it makes a hat easier to wear in warm weather

what do you think ?

 

[fedoracentric]

I wear hats made without a liner in the summer, yes. but I would never pull a liner out of a hat. I don't like taking hats apart if I can help it.

 

[Roan]

I've heard of a few people around here that take the liner out of their hats for the summertime and put them back in during the Fall and Winter. I myself have never done this as most of my hats are vintage and I don't want to damage them by taking the liners out but, if you've got a hat that the liner is already loose on, I'd say give it a try. It's worth a shot at least.

 

[ingineer]

In my humble opinion, Removing the liner is not going you make you feel cooler.
It is the amount of air space that is important.
Think chef's hat or cowboy hat.
Richard

 

[gtdean48]

I have quite a few hats, modern factory models, that I've "unglued" the liner. A few of my customs I ordered without the liner attached.
The liner does hold body heat more so than no liner.
I simply tuck the liner behind the sweatband when cooler temps come around.
I have some beater vintage Open Roads that I have liberated the liners from as well.
Akubra Campdrafts come with the plastic tip liner & can really hold in head heat.
I use a blow dryer to warm up the glue & gently peel the liner out.
I have an older CD that only came with a tip sticker = no liner.

 

[CRH]

I don't like liners in any season.

 

[indyhan]

thanks for the input, gents
the hat i'm considering wearing without the liner is a quite lightweight felt and came with a non attached liner, so i'm not messing the lid going for the no liner option.
as i find the lining quite nice, doing without it puts me off a little, stylewise, but it beats wearing a straw hat in my book, so....

 

[Huertecilla]

A hat does basically two things temperature wise.
It shades the head from the sun.
It insulates the head form the ambient temperature be that high or low.

A well vented hat will allow moving air to pass over the head, though the shade, thus keeping the solar heat from it AND allow extracting vaporising heat from it.
In VERY dry and hot ambients, one will lose a LOT of moisture and ditto heat up through the head. A 'breeze' weave hat will keep the head cool but just about drains water.

The felt hat will not assist cooling through evaporating sweat.
What felt does is shade and insulate.
With a lining it will insulate more.
It thus stands to reason that when the ambient temp. is low OR very high, the lining is better up to the job.
That is why desert bedouin wear a few meters of cloth wrapped around the head: To keep the sun off, insulate it from>37 degree ambient temp and limit evaporation.

Without a lining is the best option when the weather is warmish, it will allow for some heat radiation, thus keeping it a bit warmer and allowing it to keep a bit cooler.

There you have it. That is how it works.

p.s. when a straw hat is woven tight it passes no air. As such it functionally becomes the same as a light colored felt hat.

 

[PHIL1959]

In the summer I wear a Bates lightweight racing felt hat that's unlined,not as cool as a Panama but acceptable non the less.

 

[Huertecilla]

In the summer I wear a Bates lightweight racing felt hat that's unlined,not as cool as a Panama but acceptable non the less.

Stating 'a Panama' is a bit of using a blunt object in this context.
A tight weave is functionally not different from lightweight felt and weight wise one may be in for a surprise.

See http://www.thefedoralounge.com/show...-are-the-lightest-vintage-felt-hats-out-there

 

[T Jones]

I've taken the liners out of some of my more recent vintage hats for Summer, but my older and more rare vintage hats I leave them in and wear those when the weather isn't so hot.

 

[Tomasso]

In warmer climes I reach for an open weave/vented straw when the dew point approaches the mid sixties.

 

[indyhan]

Huertecilla is right. It makes a huge difference, IMHO, what kind of conditions you're talking about beyond just "hot". A hat will function completely differently in shady or cloudy areas with high heat and humidity, where less is generally better, than it does in dry heat under a blazing sun, where more distance and insulation (liner, crown height, or even a foam panel like a Tilley) between you (the unrestricted blood supply to your brain) and that sun-scorched crown will actually keep you cooler.

In this area where mid-summers are hot and very humid but there's not generally much direct sun, felt hats get miserable and I look forward to switching to straw (IMHO, if you haven't found a straw you like you haven't looked very hard). In the Great Plains and the desert, where a hat can literally be the difference between life and death, I'll take a high-crown felt in any heat and I'm sure a liner helps as well.

i hear you, mothprey, humidity rate is a major factor in the heat equation.
well, next potential heat situation for me is a trip to Venice, Italy, two weeks from now.
while far from as hot as Venice gets in summer, mid to late april can dish out a solid amount of sun with a fair amount of humidity in the air.
i'll be sporting a vintage herbert johnson homburg converted into a fedora, made of fairly light felt. no liner.
this should help me make my mind (last year, i was in Venice same time of year, and i had picked a AB Henry complete with liner to top my noggin'. Proved a bit uncomfortable at times and got me sweating more than once.

as for straw hats, well, i haven't grown that fond of them as of yet.

 

[outsidebear]

So what is the purpose of a satin hat liner?
Most all hats that are sanded for a fine surface finish do not have the inside of the crown sanded/finished.
This leaves the coarser felt surface inside the hat crown unfinished/rough/coarse.
Seems to me one of the primary reasons for satin liners in hats is to act like a hubcap on a cars metal wheel rim, to cover it up and make it look appealing/nicer. Might as well put some advertising on that liner while at it! That's fine.
Long ago when men wore Brylcreem hair goo the liner might serve to keep the oil/cream from leaching into the felt?

A liner removed from a hat (speaking in general, but more so with western hats), may reduce the interior temperature slightly, that could depend upon circumstances of ambient temperature/direct sun/humidity/etc.? I don't use liners in the hats I create for a client. Now I'm not the fanciest hatter out here, but not too bad either.

For my personal use the hat(?) that I'll wear when it comes down to keeping the heat n' sun way in the desert, is a British style pith helmet, like you would see British Bobby wear with his uniform (years ago anyway)(but in tan or white). This type of hat/helmet has a hard hat type of head harness that allows the air to flow/circulate into/upwards over your head, even a small vent at the top of the crown. Indeed, wearing this type of headgear does get a look or two, but most comfortable under a harsh sun.

 

[fedoracentric]

I have to say, I've never noticed any difference between a hat with and one without a liner on a hot day. When it's hot... it's hot! I suppose "scientifically" there is a difference, but never enough for me to make a policy of liner or no. I just don't like the idea of ripping a hat apart. If it's "too hot" for a hat with a liner, wear a hat that wasn't made with one, I guess.

 

[Huertecilla]

I have to say, I've never noticed any difference between a hat with and one without a liner on a hot day. When it's hot... it's hot! I suppose "scientifically" there is a difference, but never enough for me to make a policy of liner or no.

And I suppose that very few of those writing about ´hot´have experience with hót.
RAD makes for a difference in perspiration rate and as such for perceived heat because of skin sensation but actual degréés of temp. are the temperature and determains whether your head radiates or absorbs heat.
Where I live it gets 45 degrees centigrade in the shade for sometimes weeks on end.
Now to put that into perspective: Leaving my solar powered EPD Seiko on the table during lunch in may will see it go into fault mode use below 50 degrees´ whereas on the wríst there is no way to get it to do that even in august with 45 degrees ambient temp. The case back is appearantly cooled VERY effectively by the blood through my skin. This means I get heated up by the watch!
Now that watch is rather small but this is the same but in extrema on my head. During these circumstances an uncovered head will get me killed in shockingly little time as the head is like a heat exchanger for my core temp.

The moral of it all is that protection from the sun is a factor below some 30 degrees ambient temp. and that abóve about 40 even in the shade insulation can become a factor to take into account in relation to both core temp. and loss of fluid.
The science just explains the facts of life.
In dutch ´science´ is called ´wetenschap´ = is ´created knowledge´ and that is correct. The science of how it works creates knowledge about how it works. It does not affect it. It remains fact of life.

Some 20 years ago in the Netherlands neighbours called me ´The Weatherman´ because I always was up early to go out with/ train my dogs and went out or came back when they were at breakfast or went to work. The type of hat I wore told them the weather it was or to expect.
Over here it is a bit simpler: 300 days sun/year... Hence I dug up the ´lightest hat´- topic with the search function. Thanks for that btw!!

 

[fedoracentric]

"And I suppose that very few of those writing about ´hot´have experience with hót."

And I suppose when you don't know anything about someone and assume they know nothing about "hot" it says more about you than it does them.

 

[Florida_Marlin]

I live in Florida, hot and humid most of the year, and I wear hats everyday and mostly felt. I keep the liners in my hats until....I wear one enough out in the heat and decide I need to clean it then I'll remove the liner and clean it, water bath or white gas bath, whichever is needed. Then I'll usually just not put the liner back in. In my vintage hats that I want to keep more "unaltered" I generally don't wear them until I get them very sweaty. I have a couple vintage Stetson 3x ranchers that I abuse. The liners on those are long gone.

 

[nigeloscar]

I prefer the liners in with the plastic piece - just because I will occasionally pop a hat on when I've been wearing hair wax ( only to tame a lame hairstyle) and it protects the hat from that...

 

[Brian Niebuhr]

I like how liners look but I always end up taking them out. Liners add extra weight and that alone can make a hat feel hotter to me. Once the liner is out I lightly pounce the inside crown to make it look and feel a little nicer.