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A week or so ago, this was a cowboy hat of the Thoroughbred brand. I had purchased it new in the late 1970s (I think it was) from a since-defunct Western wear store in Seattle's Pioneer Square district. It hadn't seen much use in, oh, ever, really. I recall a housemate from a long, long time ago adopting it for her work in the backyard garden, but since then it has just collected dust. Whatever possessed me to purchase it in the first place, I'll never know.
So I figured I'd see what I could make of it with these hatter's tools and equipment and materials I've assembled. I took it apart, brushed it within an inch of its life (man, but that closet dust can collect and become one with the felt), soaked it for a day or two in Coleman camp fuel and then, after the fuel evaporated, in water. I was a bit taken aback by how much dye the hat gave up in the cleaning process. My limited experience had me expecting to see more visible dye in the solvent (and water) than I would with a lighter colored hat. I don't know if darker hats typically lose more dye in cleaning, or if it's just that the darker dye is more conspicuous. In either case, the amount this hat body lost seemed excessive, and that, along with a couple of other things (more on that in a bit), had me thinking that perhaps Thoroughbred brand hats aren't the the best available.
It spent something like three full days on the No. 52 block (best purchase I've made in some time, by the way), got ironed and then pounced (which may well have been a waste of time and effort), and lost approximately 1/2 inch of brim. I say approximately 1/2 inch because the actual amount varied due to the hat's edge being quite uneven to start with. I hadn't paid it any never mind before I set to working on this hat, because, well, it's not the sort of thing a person would notice on casual observation. But this thing's edge was so wavy that I can only speculate as to what went wrong at the hat factory, and what sorts of quality-control measures were (or, more accurately, weren't) in place.
The hat got reassembled with a new sweatband (the original sweatband was still intact and not in appreciably worse condition than it was when new, but man, what a stiff, inflexible, uncomfortable thing it was) and a new ribbon and bow made from some vintage ribbon I found on the 'Bay. And I also fashioned a functional wind string from Stretchrite elastic cord (thanks for the tip, Stoney) dyed (quite tediously) with a permanent marker in a color that comes pretty darned close to the ribbon's, and a button made with a small piece of ribbon and a button-making kit purchased from the fabric store. I reused the original liner, after hand washing and ironing it.
My vague aim, when I started on this renovation, was to fedoraize a cowboy hat. What I ended up with is something of a hybrid, a town-and-country kind of lid. I had thought that I'd go with a somewhat narrower brim, but I decided to try a full three inches and see how I liked that. (I could always remove more brim.) Turns out that I like it fine. This is, at heart, a cowboy hat, after all. It's a thick, heavy, Western hat. That it retains some of its original character, as reflected in a quite wide brim (by fedora standards, anyway) seems only right to me.
In a perfect world ...
The ribbon would be maybe a quarter of an inch narrower. (It's 2 1/8 inches, so it's a big 'un.) The wind string button would be 3/8s of an inch in diameter, rather than 1/2. (The half-inch kits were the smallest the fabric store had in stock.) And Stretchrite cord would be produced in an ever-so-slightly narrower gauge. But that the button is a skosh larger than the norm, and the cord a little bit wider, is something of a happy accident, seeing how its size works okay with that wide ribbon and extravagant bow.
Speaking of the bow ... that trailing section is a touch more prominent than it should be, maybe. I was planning to shorten it, but it's kinda growing on me. It appeals in the same sort of way as a '60 Cadillac's tailfin. (I've long preferred the '60 Caddy over the '59.) So I'll leave it as is.
I'm hoping this hat will hold up well to the rigors of regular use, because I quite like the way it looks on me and I expect to wear it often. (I'm right at 6 feet tall in my bare feet and weigh in at 190-something, and I frequently step out in blue jeans, cowboy boots, a decent shirt and a sports coat or waist-length leather jacket, so this hat works well with all of that.) But I'm here to tell you, when you do to a hat what I did to this one, you get a sense of how well it was made. And this hat was not at all well made. Oh, the felt is all fur (100 percent domestic rabbit, I'd be willing to bet), and it actually looks and feels pretty good. But that it gave up so much dye in the cleaning process is an indication of a cheapened-down body-making process. (Let's hope it has lost as much color as it is likely to.) The original sweatband, while made of leather, is about as crummy a leather sweatband as I've ever encountered. And the manner in which it was attached to the body left me scratching my head. A few of the holes made by the sewing machine were large enough to see daylight through (before they were covered again by the replacement sweatband and ribbon, of course). Securing a sweatband to a hat body does not require such measures. It certainly doesn't warrant weakening the felt body by making such large holes in it.
I cleaned another Thoroughbred brand hat some time ago, a light tan OR style thing that looked pretty darned nice, with its tallish, straight-sided crown and widish brim and all. But the felt seemed like cardboard. And it was faded in a spot on the underside of the brim, in a place that apparently got exposed to regular daylight as it was left undisturbed on a rack for months if not years. And there's another Thoroughbred brand cowboy hat here at Chateau Antoine -- a gift from a friend who encourages this hat thing of mine. (There must be literally millions of cowboy hats taking up space in closets -- hats that were bought all those years ago by people like me who now wonder what the hell possessed them to buy 'em in the first place.) It's a very large black hat with a leather band. (Put a couple of engines on it and you could fly it to Wichita.) The plan is to turn it into something akin to the hat featured here. Another friend, who also likes this hat renovating thing, is slated to receive the black hat as a gift. But he has a exceptionally large head (almost a size 8), and I'll have to come up with a block that'll work. (We'll probably make one.) Anyway, the hat is no great shakes. But what the heck, that makes it good for learning material, eh?
Yes, I'll post picture after I retrieve 'em from photobucket.
So I figured I'd see what I could make of it with these hatter's tools and equipment and materials I've assembled. I took it apart, brushed it within an inch of its life (man, but that closet dust can collect and become one with the felt), soaked it for a day or two in Coleman camp fuel and then, after the fuel evaporated, in water. I was a bit taken aback by how much dye the hat gave up in the cleaning process. My limited experience had me expecting to see more visible dye in the solvent (and water) than I would with a lighter colored hat. I don't know if darker hats typically lose more dye in cleaning, or if it's just that the darker dye is more conspicuous. In either case, the amount this hat body lost seemed excessive, and that, along with a couple of other things (more on that in a bit), had me thinking that perhaps Thoroughbred brand hats aren't the the best available.
It spent something like three full days on the No. 52 block (best purchase I've made in some time, by the way), got ironed and then pounced (which may well have been a waste of time and effort), and lost approximately 1/2 inch of brim. I say approximately 1/2 inch because the actual amount varied due to the hat's edge being quite uneven to start with. I hadn't paid it any never mind before I set to working on this hat, because, well, it's not the sort of thing a person would notice on casual observation. But this thing's edge was so wavy that I can only speculate as to what went wrong at the hat factory, and what sorts of quality-control measures were (or, more accurately, weren't) in place.
The hat got reassembled with a new sweatband (the original sweatband was still intact and not in appreciably worse condition than it was when new, but man, what a stiff, inflexible, uncomfortable thing it was) and a new ribbon and bow made from some vintage ribbon I found on the 'Bay. And I also fashioned a functional wind string from Stretchrite elastic cord (thanks for the tip, Stoney) dyed (quite tediously) with a permanent marker in a color that comes pretty darned close to the ribbon's, and a button made with a small piece of ribbon and a button-making kit purchased from the fabric store. I reused the original liner, after hand washing and ironing it.
My vague aim, when I started on this renovation, was to fedoraize a cowboy hat. What I ended up with is something of a hybrid, a town-and-country kind of lid. I had thought that I'd go with a somewhat narrower brim, but I decided to try a full three inches and see how I liked that. (I could always remove more brim.) Turns out that I like it fine. This is, at heart, a cowboy hat, after all. It's a thick, heavy, Western hat. That it retains some of its original character, as reflected in a quite wide brim (by fedora standards, anyway) seems only right to me.
In a perfect world ...
The ribbon would be maybe a quarter of an inch narrower. (It's 2 1/8 inches, so it's a big 'un.) The wind string button would be 3/8s of an inch in diameter, rather than 1/2. (The half-inch kits were the smallest the fabric store had in stock.) And Stretchrite cord would be produced in an ever-so-slightly narrower gauge. But that the button is a skosh larger than the norm, and the cord a little bit wider, is something of a happy accident, seeing how its size works okay with that wide ribbon and extravagant bow.
Speaking of the bow ... that trailing section is a touch more prominent than it should be, maybe. I was planning to shorten it, but it's kinda growing on me. It appeals in the same sort of way as a '60 Cadillac's tailfin. (I've long preferred the '60 Caddy over the '59.) So I'll leave it as is.
I'm hoping this hat will hold up well to the rigors of regular use, because I quite like the way it looks on me and I expect to wear it often. (I'm right at 6 feet tall in my bare feet and weigh in at 190-something, and I frequently step out in blue jeans, cowboy boots, a decent shirt and a sports coat or waist-length leather jacket, so this hat works well with all of that.) But I'm here to tell you, when you do to a hat what I did to this one, you get a sense of how well it was made. And this hat was not at all well made. Oh, the felt is all fur (100 percent domestic rabbit, I'd be willing to bet), and it actually looks and feels pretty good. But that it gave up so much dye in the cleaning process is an indication of a cheapened-down body-making process. (Let's hope it has lost as much color as it is likely to.) The original sweatband, while made of leather, is about as crummy a leather sweatband as I've ever encountered. And the manner in which it was attached to the body left me scratching my head. A few of the holes made by the sewing machine were large enough to see daylight through (before they were covered again by the replacement sweatband and ribbon, of course). Securing a sweatband to a hat body does not require such measures. It certainly doesn't warrant weakening the felt body by making such large holes in it.
I cleaned another Thoroughbred brand hat some time ago, a light tan OR style thing that looked pretty darned nice, with its tallish, straight-sided crown and widish brim and all. But the felt seemed like cardboard. And it was faded in a spot on the underside of the brim, in a place that apparently got exposed to regular daylight as it was left undisturbed on a rack for months if not years. And there's another Thoroughbred brand cowboy hat here at Chateau Antoine -- a gift from a friend who encourages this hat thing of mine. (There must be literally millions of cowboy hats taking up space in closets -- hats that were bought all those years ago by people like me who now wonder what the hell possessed them to buy 'em in the first place.) It's a very large black hat with a leather band. (Put a couple of engines on it and you could fly it to Wichita.) The plan is to turn it into something akin to the hat featured here. Another friend, who also likes this hat renovating thing, is slated to receive the black hat as a gift. But he has a exceptionally large head (almost a size 8), and I'll have to come up with a block that'll work. (We'll probably make one.) Anyway, the hat is no great shakes. But what the heck, that makes it good for learning material, eh?
Yes, I'll post picture after I retrieve 'em from photobucket.
