Ifs the hat doesn't fit...

[shortbow]

Hey all, here's a wee tip that will give the purists and sophisticates a bad case of the willies.

I recently bought a NOS Champ fedora sold as a 7, but which fit more like a 71/4. I tried various approaches to sizing it down, including shoving stuff inside the sweatband, but remained frustrated enough to try this:

I turned the sweatband down and saturated it with water from a spray bottle. I then force-dried it with a heat gun. This shrank the leather and pulled the hat with it. It now fits perfectly. If you want to try this, you must be sure to keep the heat gun or dryer moving so as not to burn or embrittle the leather.

No guts no glory!lol

 

[indycop]

Sounds like the lampshade trick.

 

[HarpPlayerGene]

Good tip. A little risky - as you properly disclaim - but worth a try on some hats.

I was just thinking of starting a "Tips & Tricks" thread but thought there probably is an old one which is hard to search, has lost most of its photos and doesn't click to page 2 or beyond, but which might be pointed out as having already been done before.

So, since you put this tip up here's one of mine. To do an amateurish job of conforming a hat to my knotty head shape, I dampen the sweatband with either Lexol, water or both, install my hat stretcher -WITH A SHOE HORN STUFFED IN WHERE THE KNOT ON MY HEAD WILL BE -, snug up the stretcher, then apply a little steam from the kettle to soften up the surrounding felt and let the whole arrangement cool and dry overnight.

 

[Stan]

The most expensive trick!

Hi,

I was frustrated when I began. Nothing fit right no matter what I did.

So, I went the conformer route via Art, and so have one hat that actually fits me properly.

I then worked on a one-size-larger cheap hat stretcher in the workshop so that it conforms to the custom hat that conforms to my non-conformist head.

Yes, this is costly, as you first have to buy a custom hat!

However, it works great to get a vintage hat off of eBay to fit onto my noggin. Since I'm a 7 1/16 I can work this trick with either a size 7 or a size 7 1/8, which is handy.

For what it's worth, of course. lol

Later!

Stan

 

[donCarlos]

It seems more than a bit risky to me. My experience says that the sweatband shall never (NEVER) be wet. I can´t imagine how you dried it without curling the whole sweatband up. (Plus I´d like to know how to straighten it, I have callosities from one of my hats)

Stuffing the space between the felt and the sweatband by old newspaper works good for me.

 

[carter]

In my experience, stretching one size larger, if done cautiously and using good leather conditioner, can be done temporarily. However, it seems to me that the hat always returns to the original size (hat memory ?) or it looks like it was stretched. Old sweatbands. even those that appear to be ok, can be notoriously fragile. I'd rather sell the hat.
Or... replace the sweatband after having the hat reblocked to your size. Of course, then you have a different hat from the one you had originally. If the old felt is in good shape though, you'll have a hat body considerably better than any available commercially today.