Is The Hype Warranted ???

[Gilded Age Guy]

oh great, I'm happy there's some interest! One feels a bit of an odd duck working on all this by oneself, you know . . .

I can tackle the Optimo question on the Optimo thread, though I'm sure that Opinions Will Vary, so I will try to state my conclusions in as fact-based a way I am able.

As to Mr JBA972's question, the Aspen 4 can have an effect on old sweatbands, and it's a bit of a ****shoot on how and in what cases. I have found that better quality and/or little-used sweats will show little or no effect, generally speaking. A well-worn sweat of good quality post-Aspen will often have a powdery residue of what I believe is human-source salt (based on taste only) on its surface, but this is easily wiped away with any good leather conditioner. Sweats that are either cheapies or on their last legs will sometimes wrinkle and dry as the last of their essential oils are dissolved in the solvent. These will require new sweatbands, of course.

For old sweats I will not bathe them overnight, or bathe them at all, but rather run the Aspen carefully over and through the felt, brushing gently and avoiding as much contact with the leather as I am able, and I will also install a strip of oiled silk (like the old tip liners) between the existing sweat and the body of the hat. This will also minimize contact with solvent coming though from the exterior of the hat, and serves as a sacrificial barrier easily removed post-treatment.

In the specific case of my 100, it had been rarely if ever worn, and was furnished with a sweatband of very high quality, so there was no discernible change in appearance or texture. I do always recondition sweats after a bath, though, to replenish the oils and keep them supple.

 

[jba972]

oh great, I'm happy there's some interest! One feels a bit of an odd duck working on all this by oneself, you know . . .

I can tackle the Optimo question on the Optimo thread, though I'm sure that Opinions Will Vary, so I will try to state my conclusions in as fact-based a way I am able.

As to Mr JBA972's question, the Aspen 4 can have an effect on old sweatbands, and it's a bit of a ****shoot on how and in what cases. I have found that better quality and/or little-used sweats will show little or no effect, generally speaking. A well-worn sweat of good quality post-Aspen will often have a powdery residue of what I believe is human-source salt (based on taste only) on its surface, but this is easily wiped away with any good leather conditioner. Sweats that are either cheapies or on their last legs will sometimes wrinkle and dry as the last of their essential oils are dissolved in the solvent. These will require new sweatbands, of course.

For old sweats I will not bathe them overnight, or bathe them at all, but rather run the Aspen carefully over and through the felt, brushing gently and avoiding as much contact with the leather as I am able, and I will also install a strip of oiled silk (like the old tip liners) between the existing sweat and the body of the hat. This will also minimize contact with solvent coming though from the exterior of the hat, and serves as a sacrificial barrier easily removed post-treatment.

In the specific case of my 100, it had been rarely if ever worn, and was furnished with a sweatband of very high quality, so there was no discernible change in appearance or texture. I do always recondition sweats after a bath, though, to replenish the oils and keep them supple.

Now I'm kinda interested in trying this on some of the vintage hats. Thanks for details about the sweatbands.

 

[Gilded Age Guy]

great, just be careful and take breaks from the fumes.

If you need or want any info on how to make oiled silk as a protective barrier (a la the tip protectors and sweat barriers on old hats), let me know by PM or suggest a place I can post the recipe. I don't want to (further) hijack a threat about Mr. Moon's excellent video!

 

[moontheloon]

I don't really have a whole lot to add. I also enjoyed the video and thought it was well edited. Too many Youtubers get stuck on just talking to the camera with no b-roll and this was not that!



I also have a sample size of one and one, and my 100 is a 60's iteration. My 7xCB also has an asterisk, given that it was already a Shudde renovated hat when I got it. I pulled them both out after reading this thread. My 100 doesn't so much have the "clay like" felt like some of the prewar hats I have, but it still has a super soft feeling hand. It might just be that it's stone fruit season now, but peach fuzz was really the first thing that came to mind.



Have we seen a lot of 100's with embossed model names though? I am normally in the "has to say Open Road" camp, but my 100 has OR dimensions, and came with a $100 OR reorder tag in the case. Technically, I can't prove the provenance of the hat, it was just an ebay purchase. It's not out of the realm of possibility that someone had one or the other and put them together. But on the other hand, Occam's razor and all, maybe the 100 ORs only had 100 branding?

Jared,
Thank you so much my friend for the kind words
I've alwats highly respected your knowledge and candid demeanor... so your words indeed carry weight.
I believe these "OR Style" 100s are indeed Open Roads regardless of having the debossed designation.
I've never in all my yeats have seen a 100 stamped "Open Road" but the $100 price point is in the ads so i consider this an Open Road without a doubt.

That reorder tag is a first for me... thank you so much for sharing it.
I have zero reason to believe that it was not at one time attached to your hat.

 

[moontheloon]

Terrific video sir--really enjoyed it! I love Stetson 100s and own three of them. Two in the cases and one not. FWIW I've noticed that lots of almost unworn vintage felts develop a kind of chalky hand, which if you compare to other old natural materials (I have as part of my work a large collection of Gilded Age apparel and accessories) isn't too unusual. I have reasoned that even when stored in very sound trunks or boxes, old things are still exposed to a degree of atmospheric pollution and very fine particulate matter as these containers are not truly airtight.

This has led me to experiment. In the case of the Stetson 100 I like as a daily wearer, one of the two I have in their cases, I proceeded as follows. To the eye it was pristine and possibly unworn (ribbons, sweat, liner, etc), but the felt possessed a strangely chalky or 'dusty' hand, even though presumably (only a presumption) it had been kept in its case for 60+ years. This I found hard to fathom as an artifact of manufacturing, because a hat purchaser of the 1950s/60s would have likely been disappointed with a $100 hat with a texture like mine.

So I dunked it overnight in gasoline. I use Aspen 4 to clean/service my old hats as it has no modern additives, colorants, ethanol, etc and is as close to early white gasoline as is (to my knowledge) available today. (Even Coleman and Crown lantern fuels contain a variety of additives--notably in the case of Coleman fuel a blue-green colorant, which would not do any favors to a light-colored hat!). Aspen 4 is a highly refined gasoline for four-stroke engines and has a storage life of many years compared to modern gasolines, which will go gummy in as little as six months. (There is an Aspen 2 for two-stroke engines, but for heaven's sake don't use that as it is premixed with oil!)

Anyhow, I soaked the 100 overnight in the Aspen 4, gave it a good agitation in the morning, and hung it up to dry. Then I poured the used Aspen into a glass jug and was amazed/gobsmacked at how much fine particulate matter had come off and was drifting about in the fluid. (No hat powder, thankfully, which is sometimes the case with light hats.) I then strained the Aspen through coffee filters and cheesecloth and collected almost a teaspoon of fine grey dust that had come out of this pristine-looking hat. (Under magnification this contained almost no fur particles of any size.)

Bottom line is that when the formerly chalky-but-clean-looking 100 dried and was given a light brushing, that felt was as soft as the hair on the back of an angel. It had the feel of a brand-new, high quality 100% beaver felt again. It was like stepping into a kind of tactile time machine.

Point of this screed is that I think sometimes it is possible to judge the hand of an old felt--even an apparently very clean one--'unfairly' because of its large load of very fine atmospheric dust acquired over many years of even very careful storage. And, of course, the ambient atmospheric conditions/pollution and storage conditions will vary widely from hat to hat.

My working hypothesis is that over time, very fine airborne dust, smoke, etc. clogs and smooths over the surface pores of the felt, and mats down the very fine surface nap. (With nappier felts, velours, satins, and melusines this is negligible to the hand, but to the very fine nap of a Stetson 100 it is much more noticeable.) I say 'hypothesis' because that's exactly what it is--something to test experimentally and to revise and replace as new observations accumulate. And it is 'my' hypothesis only because I've never discussed it with anyone else, so it's highly possible that some or many of you have evolved a similar one. I make no pretensions to originality (other than in my books, ha ha).

In short, I believe that the gasoline bath not only opens up the pores again, but also gently raises the nap to what I have to think was something closer to the feel of a $100 hat when new.

I've had similar experiences to this one with other hats, too, but in truth it took a little courage to dunk one of my 100s in gasoline. So I wanted to share my experience and results here for your interest and/or amusement, and also without exposing any of you to risk of damage, either to the hat from the gasoline bath or to yourself from the attendant hazards of gasoline. Which I would enjoin you to avoid--this is part of my profession and I've been at it long enough to evolve rather elaborate (baroque?) precautions to avoid either immolating myself or burning down the house. Neither of which would endear me to my wife, even if I survived them.

Very interesting read for sure..
This hat definitely is not one of those cases.
The felt is clean and in no need of a naptha type bath.
I'm a vintage hat veteran and understand exactly what you describe in the clogged pore finish.
Thanks so much for watching .

 

[moontheloon]

Now I'm kinda interested in trying this on some of the vintage hats. Thanks for details about the sweatbands.

I do not recommend this process.
Respectfully.
Where there have been occasions where the results were positive... There are far more not so great situations.
I had some nice results with a 1930s No. 1 quality.
If you have a heavily soiled hat stripped down to the felt and grosgrain by all means go for it.
But hats in good condition that need a bit of cleaning... there are much safer ways to get good results.

 

[jba972]

I do not recommend this process.
Respectfully.
Where there have been occasions where the results were positive... There are far more not so great situations.
I had some nice results with a 1930s No. 1 quality.
If you have a heavily soiled hat stripped down to the felt and grosgrain by all means go for it.
But hats in good condition that need a bit of cleaning... there are much safer ways to get good results.

I do feel like I would need a couple of YouTube videos to see what a before and after effect is and to see if the juice is worth the squeeze in doing this

 

[moontheloon]

I do feel like I would need a couple of YouTube videos to see what a before and after effect is and to see if the juice is worth the squeeze in doing this

I reserve this for heavily souled and stained hats.
It's really not worth the risk.
If your urge is strong do it on a hat you don't care about first.
The bath is not kind to leather.

 

[jba972]

I reserve this for heavily souled and stained hats.
It's really not worth the risk.
If your urge is strong do it on a hat you don't care about first.
The bath is not kind to leather.

So ideally if I get more familiar with this process I'd be more inclined to take risks in purchasing hats that are more worn looking.
Btw your video now has me going down the OR rabbit hole.

 

[moontheloon]

So ideally if I get more familiar with this process I'd be more inclined to take risks in purchasing hats that are more worn looking.
Btw your video now has me going down the OR rabbit hole.

Naphtha bath is not going to make a hat less worn looking per se.
It's going to remove stains of oil, grease etc.
It doesn't always remove sweat stains from grosgrain.
It more just purifies the felt of debris... that's really it.

... and be careful... you may wake up and own 45 OR soon... it doesn't take long.

 

[moontheloon]

I have 3 cases; 2 came with the hats & 1 I bought complete to marry up with a hat. I also have a hat with no case at this point in time.

Some cases have white liners with the Stetson 100 script instead of red. Haven’t figured that out yet but I usually think of the quilted Ermine case & certificate when I see one.

are yours the black cases?
I've seen the black suitcase with the white liner... super sharp looking.
At least I think it's black... maybe a dark brown?
Definitely much darker than the sort of tannish leather color of the case I have with the red liner.

Your 100s are beautiful.
I'd love to see some motion pictures of them being handled if you ever get into that kind of thing ... I know it's not for everyone.

 

[Hurricane Jack]

are yours the black cases?
I've seen the black suitcase with the white liner... super sharp looking.
At least I think it's black... maybe a dark brown?
Definitely much darker than the sort of tannish leather color of the case I have with the red liner.

Your 100s are beautiful.
I'd love to see some motion pictures of them being handled if you ever get into that kind of thing ... I know it's not for everyone.

Mine is not black but a very dark brown. I can recall when saddlemakers & leatherworkers called this color Belt Brown leather. Definitely not Saddle Brown or Saddle Tan. Another interesting thing about my white liner case is that it came double boxed, it was inside an original box which had a shipping label to the original Philadelphia address. So it definitely predates the closing of the Philadelphia plant. Makes me wonder if the white liner predates the red liner, & why there are fewer of them? Also thinking about the age of the Ermine case.

Thank you for the compliment, Anthony. I used to have some better pics in a file but dumped them a while back to clear Cloud space. I came up with one pic of white.

I have two Western fedora One-hundreds that came to me with cases. They are favs of mine also.

 

[moontheloon]

Mine is not black but a very dark brown. I can recall when saddlemakers & leatherworkers called this color Belt Brown leather. Definitely not Saddle Brown or Saddle Tan. Another interesting thing about my white liner case is that it came double boxed, it was inside an original box which had a shipping label to the original Philadelphia address. So it definitely predates the closing of the Philadelphia plant. Makes me wonder if the white liner predates the red liner, & why there are fewer of them? Also thinking about the age of the Ermine case.

Thank you for the compliment, Anthony. I used to have some better pics in a file but dumped them a while back to clear Cloud space. I came up with one pic of white.

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I have two Western fedora One-hundreds that came to me with cases. They are favs of mine also.

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Absolutely awesome Jack !
Thanks so much for sharing

 

[moontheloon]

shameless bump for anyone who may have missed it