Modern rabbit, vintage rabbit, modern beaver

[carouselvic]

Talk about taper

 

[ScottF]

...
So, if you want a modern rain hat that won't taper, get one with a real tapered crown. But don't expect a full crowned new hat to not taper. No matter what fur is used. One brand might take longer to taper, but all will taper eventually, if you get em' wet. And they did in the heyday of hats too. Almost every dry cleaners had a hat reblocking service back in those days. Reblocking hats to get back the original crown shape sure ain't new. Always been around. There was nothing magical about those old hats, when they were brand new. Just find a really old hatter, around 90 years old, and ask him. I feel certain he would agree with me.

It sounds like in your last two posts that you are saying a vintage hat doesn't react as adversely to rain, because the felt has aged more? Sounds like another reason to get a good quality vintage hat when you can find one.

 

[Lefty]

If I remember correctly, all threads with the phrase "aged felt" that I've seen have ended up locked.

 

[Dreispitz]

If I remember correctly, all threads with the phrase "aged felt" that I've seen have ended up locked.

Reminds me of "aged steel" in terms of pre 1600 Japanese art swords. fftopic:

 

[Matt Deckard]

I prefer the term mellow felt.

 

[ScottF]

If I remember correctly, all threads with the phrase "aged felt" that I've seen have ended up locked.

uh oh - I haven't yet been part of a locked thread

 

[Fedora]

So are you saying the Zapf hat I posted can't stand up to extreme weather conditions? I have no idea about the taper situation so it would be interesting to see how it matches up against the hats you make in extreme weather conditions.

No sir, not at all. We are not communicating well. And perhaps my fault there.


Let's get on the same page. Generally when one says a hat will or will not hold up to "weather" that means in my circles that the hat would lose its original full crown shape. Nothing else. It has to do with a hat tapering.

But since your Zapf hat came to you already tapered(the style) this would be a moot point with your hat. So, we just had a misunderstanding, that's all.

I was not insulting your hat, or your choice. I was only talking about the taper issue most of us see in new hats,(after they get wet a few times) when the style of the hat originally was a straight crowned hat.

Hope that clears this up.

If I remember correctly, all threads with the phrase "aged felt" that I've seen have ended up locked.

I am not aware of that if it happened. On the link to the old technical paper in this thread, I printed it out and read it. It speaks in a round about way to this aging, and even gave us a term for fur that has lost its scales. Kemp, or Kemper was the term used to decribe this sort of fur. Basically it is fur that through various ways, have damaged scales, that make it unsuitable for making felt. The lack of scales will not allow the fibers to interlock, or "felt".

My theory is that this also happens after a hat reaches a certain age. And I truly believe is the only reason a real vintage hat seems taper proof, even when used as a regular rain hat. I have vintage hats that are like that. And some of those hats, the vintage ones, were not a tight felted felt, but very loosely felted. Today if you were to buy one that was this loose, it would taper faster than a New York minute, once you got it wet. At least that has been my own experience and a lot of other hat wearers.

I acknowledge taper. I just pointed out that I wear this hat (other similar ones) in extreme weather conditions. The felt is also over a 1/4 inch thick which makes it hard to saturate (also very warm).

Why don't you make your own felt like the Austrian hat maker I posted? This would allow to try other options other than a cone.

Well, I certainly don't disagree that your 1/4 an inch thick felt would not keep the head dry and warm. And I would have to check your post on the Austrian hat maker, to see what you are speaking of. But, before I do that, you do realize that fur hats(not talking about wool) all start life as somewhat of a cone-right? And has always been that way since the invention of the machine that uses the 3 foot tall cone to start the production of the hat body. Back when they felted by hand, the cone was done in pieces and then felted together to get the body. So, I think the invention of the cone in a vacuum chamber was an improvement in the production of hat bodies. IMO. Not really sure why they used a cone instead of a big hat shaped device though. May have been so that one cone could make tapered hats, and also non tapered hats. Not really sure.

It sounds like in your last two posts that you are saying a vintage hat doesn't react as adversely to rain, because the felt has aged more? Sounds like another reason to get a good quality vintage hat when you can find one.

Well, after thinking about this fact, and talking to various hatters over the years, it seems to be the only explanation to me. SOMETHING has to explain this, and I don't buy into the camp that says, the felt was just made better back in the old days. Because, if you are making a straight crowned hat, the tip of the cone HAS to be stretched out in order to do it. And what would cause a stretched felt, not to want to revert to the cone shape, when wetted? I figure it has to be because the fur is no longer reacting, and this is due to one thing-age. But, I am open to other explanations. But, they have to make sense. lol

The very act of producing a felt body relies highly upon fur shrinking, and matting. Without the fur shrinking in hot water, you could not produce a hat. It is the inherit nature of fur, being made into felt, to do so. So, if you felted a body until it stopped shrinking, then stretched out the tip to make a full crowned hat, what keeps the fur stretched? Well, it dries while sitting on a block. And of course, most hatters will apply water and heat to help the hat maintain that block shape. But all bets are off, if the core of the felt gets wet. All modern hats will relax, and then when they dry, they want to shrink back down to the pre stretched shape. The felt forgets what was stretched out to be. So even in the old days, most every dry cleaners had reblocking and cleaning services. To address this "loss of original blockshape" issue. When those old hats were new.

Sounds like another reason to get a good quality vintage hat when you can find one.

A very good reason to buy vintage. Most of my rain hats are vintage. Or, buy a high quality new hat, and store it for 30 years. LOL. Or do as many do and wear it like they did in the old days until it needed a reblock, and have it reblocked. If the felt is high quality felt, even a new hat will eventually mellow out enough to stop the tapering. Probably takes at least 10 years though, but that is a guess. Might be even longer. Fedora

 

[jimmy the lid]

For a guided tour of a lot of what Fedora is talking about in terms of how the felt is made to begin with, this thread may be of interest.

Cheers,
JtL

 

[mayserwegener]

Well, I certainly don't disagree that your 1/4 an inch thick felt would not keep the head dry and warm. And I would have to check your post on the Austrian hat maker, to see what you are speaking of. But, before I do that, you do realize that fur hats(not talking about wool) all start life as somewhat of a cone-right? And has always been that way since the invention of the machine that uses the 3 foot tall cone to start the production of the hat body. Back when they felted by hand, the cone was done in pieces and then felted together to get the body. So, I think the invention of the cone in a vacuum chamber was an improvement in the production of hat bodies. IMO. Not really sure why they used a cone instead of a big hat shaped device though. May have been so that one cone could make tapered hats, and also non tapered hats. Not really sure.
Fedora

I am aware of the modern felting process.

I have the entire video that includes the whole manual process. He forms the cone in pieces. It is a pretty labor intense process. The life of the hat maker was not an easy one. I will send you a PM with the link so you can take a look. Your mail box is full so couldn't send the PM.

Also what is view on velour and long hair finishes (see my avatar)? From what I gather you see heavily pounced felt (beaver or beaver / hare blend) as the supreme finish and everything else as unfinished.

 

[ScottF]

A very good reason to buy vintage. Most of my rain hats are vintage. Or, buy a high quality new hat, and store it for 30 years. LOL. Or do as many do and wear it like they did in the old days until it needed a reblock, and have it reblocked. If the felt is high quality felt, even a new hat will eventually mellow out enough to stop the tapering. Probably takes at least 10 years though, but that is a guess. Might be even longer. Fedora

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Given your explanation of a hat's need to 'return to the cone', and rlk's opinions on rain (which I always respect), I'll at least give it a little more thought before I take one of my dressier hats out in a rainstorm.

 

[tonyb]

My education isn't nearly as extensive as Fedora Steve's, but what I have learned confirms much of what he says.

I can add, though, that modern hat bodies tend to shrink and taper less with each reblock. I've reworked new all-beaver hats that have seen a year or two of regular use in wet weather, and looked it. They seem to hold the desired shape better once they've made their return trips to the block. I speculate that the crown felt grows more accustomed to its new, less cone-like shape with each "correction."

Even vintage bodies will shrink and taper, under extreme conditions. I've experimented with dyeing old hat bodies that were stained and/or faded or otherwise discolored to such an extent that they would never have been sharp-looking hats again without taking such drastic measures. Properly dyeing protein fiber (critter fur is protein fiber) involves water and high temperatures. And yes, the bodies come out of the dye bath noticeably smaller. But again, these are extreme conditions -- conditions your old hat will never be subjected to, unless you decide to take it apart and dye it, or wear it on a rainy day in Hell. And that'll never happen to any of us, of course.

 

[Fedora]

Also what is view on velour and long hair finishes (see my avatar)? From what I gather you see heavily pounced felt (beaver or beaver / hare blend) as the supreme finish and everything else as unfinished.

I think that the long hair finishes are great if that is your cup of tea. I am also impressed by the old methods of producing this finish. And I mean impressed. It astounds me the amount of manual work that went into this, prior to machines.

Personally, I like enough nap on a hat so that one can revel in the feel of different furs. It happens that beaver excites my tactile sensations more than the others, but that's just me. I can pounce a decent rabbit body to the point that is very nice looking and feels good too.

On the hats I make for myself, I do tend to take the nap down pretty short though, to the point that the felt almost appears like a fine nubuck leather. Still nap there, but it's really short. Feels sorta like nubuck too, just much softer. Perhaps this the the old suede finish, not really sure. And getting a finish like this also depends upon the run of felt I am working with. I have seen a couple of runs that would never pounce this finely, no matter what I did. Almost like something happened wrong in the felting process. Glad I don't see many of those runs. I can still get them to finish out well, but it takes alot more work, and finer grits. They just have more nap is all.

Even vintage bodies will shrink and taper, under extreme conditions. I've experimented with dyeing old hat bodies that were stained and/or faded or otherwise discolored to such an extent that they would never have been sharp-looking hats again without taking such drastic measures. Properly dyeing protein fiber (critter fur is protein fiber) involves water and high temperatures. And yes, the bodies come out of the dye bath noticeably smaller. But again, these are extreme conditions -- conditions your old hat will never be subjected to, unless you decide to take it apart and dye it, or wear it on a rainy day in Hell. And that'll never happen to any of us, of course.

Wow, I have done that too, but with different results. Before I got into the biz, I was experimenting with dyeing a light colored vintage Stetson 10x(beaver) brown. I mixed up a kettle of dye, got it to about 180 degrees and submerged the hat. I left it in there for a couple of hours. The results were not so good, and I noticed the hat still had the same blockshape it started with. So, I turned up the heat, and boiled this hat for 30 minutes in a rolling boil. This worked, in so far as the dye job was concerned. It was a nice brown color now. But, the hat still had not shrunk up, at least not to where I could tell it. That was my first experience with vintage felt not tapering, and it blew my mind. I had to know WHY!!! lol And have tried to find an answer since that day.

This dye job worked well, but only superficially. When I went to cut down the brim, I saw the core of the felt was still the original color!! It seems that even with boiling, the felt only took the dye on the outer layers. I had a sandwich! lol I later found out many old factores died the hats before they were felted completely, to get away from the sandwich look. I reckon that old beaver hat was so dense, it would not dye all the way through. And I heard that some newer factories used pressure to push the dye all the way through the body.

But, I never tried this again, so I only have one experience to relate to. Yours gives me another. So, it seems that some vintage felt will shrink under out of this world conditions, while there was at least one that did not. lol Fedora

 

[mayserwegener]

I think that the long hair finishes are great if that is your cup of tea. I am also impressed by the old methods of producing this finish. And I mean impressed. It astounds me the amount of manual work that went into this, prior to machines.

Personally, I like enough nap on a hat so that one can revel in the feel of different furs. It happens that beaver excites my tactile sensations more than the others, but that's just me. I can pounce a decent rabbit body to the point that is very nice looking and feels good too.

On the hats I make for myself, I do tend to take the nap down pretty short though, to the point that the felt almost appears like a fine nubuck leather. Still nap there, but it's really short. Feels sorta like nubuck too, just much softer. Perhaps this the the old suede finish, not really sure. And getting a finish like this also depends upon the run of felt I am working with. I have seen a couple of runs that would never pounce this finely, no matter what I did. Almost like something happened wrong in the felting process. Glad I don't see many of those runs. I can still get them to finish out well, but it takes alot more work, and finer grits. They just have more nap is all. Fedora

Thank you for the clarification!

 

[tonyb]

Wow, I have done that too, but with different results. Before I got into the biz, I was experimenting with dyeing a light colored vintage Stetson 10x(beaver) brown. I mixed up a kettle of dye, got it to about 180 degrees and submerged the hat. I left it in there for a couple of hours. The results were not so good, and I noticed the hat still had the same blockshape it started with. So, I turned up the heat, and boiled this hat for 30 minutes in a rolling boil. This worked, in so far as the dye job was concerned. It was a nice brown color now. But, the hat still had not shrunk up, at least not to where I could tell it. That was my first experience with vintage felt not tapering, and it blew my mind. I had to know WHY!!! lol And have tried to find an answer since that day.

This dye job worked well, but only superficially. When I went to cut down the brim, I saw the core of the felt was still the original color!! It seems that even with boiling, the felt only took the dye on the outer layers. I had a sandwich! lol I later found out many old factores died the hats before they were felted completely, to get away from the sandwich look. I reckon that old beaver hat was so dense, it would not dye all the way through. And I heard that some newer factories used pressure to push the dye all the way through the body.

But, I never tried this again, so I only have one experience to relate to. Yours gives me another. So, it seems that some vintage felt will shrink under out of this world conditions, while there was at least one that did not. lol Fedora

Do you recall what sort of dye you used?

 

[Fedora]

Do you recall what sort of dye you used?

Yeah. It was a bottle of brown dye, in an unmarked bottle. It came from a hatter friend of mine,and was some old dye he had ran across years ago. So, I am not sure what it was composed of. Or what brand it was. Seems like he said it was aniline, or something like that, but man, my memory isn't so great these days. Not even sure how to spell aniline, so I did it phonetically.

I tried dying a newer hat in Rit Dye once though, and it actually worked out decent. But, it shrunk the body up to a much smaller hat. lol But, it was that porous Burlington Hat Factory hat, the Tonak felt, and was a huge hat to begin with. Much larger in size than what I wear. I was able to actually wet block this hat, and stretch it out, and actually made a hat from it. Gave it away to my brother, and it eventually faded out pretty bad. So Rit dye may not last long, going by this. But, I may have done something wrong too, in the dyeing process.

I used to have time to play around with stuff like this, but not these days. Back when I was learning how to make hats, not having a good teacher, and having to glean what I could from books, I of course, experimented alot in all sorts of ways. I finally got a copy of Scientific Hatmaking, first printed in 1919, and that was a BIG help. It does not tell you everything you need to know, but the basics are there. The rest, you either learn on your own, or you get lucky and an experienced hatter will help ya out. Many hatters though are pretty close to the vest on some things. Must be the tradional ways, stemming back from the days that if you wanted to learn how to make hats, you PAID the hatter, and then worked for him free for a length of time. lol I was lucky to know a hatter who would share info, on the small details that you otherwise would learn from time and experience.

And regarding dyeing, the trick no matter what sort of dye you use, is to pull the hat out of the solution, let it cool, then put it back in, and repeat this series many times to get the core finally take the dye. The cooling and reheating somehow makes the felt of a hat absorb deeper into the core. This info came from a retired hatter, who apparently did dye work years ago.

But, you still might find it hard to dye a tightly felted beaver hat. Some of that felt is so dense, but sure keeps the head dry, because of it. And just another reason I like beaver hats. I left one of my own in a long slow rain from daylight to dark. I brought it inside and looked at the inside of the crown.(no liner) it was bone dry. But, the felt seemed to be pretty wet.(on the outside) No doubt it would have eventually soaked through, but this one did not, in a day's time. Now that is rain protection! But, it was a treated hat, with water repellant spray. I don't know how well it would have faired without the treatment. But, the next time we get an all day rain, I will try it with one that is not treated. Just to see what the difference is. Fedora

 

[tonyb]

Yeah. It was a bottle of brown dye, in an unmarked bottle. It came from a hatter friend of mine,and was some old dye he had ran across years ago. So, I am not sure what it was composed of. Or what brand it was. Seems like he said it was aniline, or something like that, but man, my memory isn't so great these days. Not even sure how to spell aniline, so I did it phonetically.

I tried dying a newer hat in Rit Dye once though, and it actually worked out decent. But, it shrunk the body up to a much smaller hat. lol But, it was that porous Burlington Hat Factory hat, the Tonak felt, and was a huge hat to begin with. Much larger in size than what I wear. I was able to actually wet block this hat, and stretch it out, and actually made a hat from it. Gave it away to my brother, and it eventually faded out pretty bad. So Rit dye may not last long, going by this. But, I may have done something wrong too, in the dyeing process.

I used to have time to play around with stuff like this, but not these days. Back when I was learning how to make hats, not having a good teacher, and having to glean what I could from books, I of course, experimented alot in all sorts of ways. I finally got a copy of Scientific Hatmaking, first printed in 1919, and that was a BIG help. It does not tell you everything you need to know, but the basics are there. The rest, you either learn on your own, or you get lucky and an experienced hatter will help ya out. Many hatters though are pretty close to the vest on some things. Must be the tradional ways, stemming back from the days that if you wanted to learn how to make hats, you PAID the hatter, and then worked for him free for a length of time. lol I was lucky to know a hatter who would share info, on the small details that you otherwise would learn from time and experience.

And regarding dyeing, the trick no matter what sort of dye you use, is to pull the hat out of the solution, let it cool, then put it back in, and repeat this series many times to get the core finally take the dye. The cooling and reheating somehow makes the felt of a hat absorb deeper into the core. This info came from a retired hatter, who apparently did dye work years ago.

But, you still might find it hard to dye a tightly felted beaver hat. Some of that felt is so dense, but sure keeps the head dry, because of it. And just another reason I like beaver hats. I left one of my own in a long slow rain from daylight to dark. I brought it inside and looked at the inside of the crown.(no liner) it was bone dry. But, the felt seemed to be pretty wet.(on the outside) No doubt it would have eventually soaked through, but this one did not, in a day's time. Now that is rain protection! But, it was a treated hat, with water repellant spray. I don't know how well it would have faired without the treatment. But, the next time we get an all day rain, I will try it with one that is not treated. Just to see what the difference is. Fedora

I don't pretend to any expertise, but I have done a bit of research into dyeing and played around with it some over the years before I ever attempted to dye a hat body. The primary lesson I took away from that was to avoid the dye you can buy at the supermarket. General purpose dyes are kind of like general-purpose stadiums (the Kingdome, for instance) in that one size really doesn't fit any. Too many compromises to suit one purpose to make it much good for another. My experience with it is much like yours -- it looks okay when it's fresh out of the dye bath, but it doesn't hold for a darn. It bleeds and fades. I wish someone could prove me wrong on this point, because I'd like to have some readily available, inexpensive alternative to what I have been using (which I'll keep to myself for now).

Speaking of keeping things to oneself ...

Yeah, some old hatters held their cards close to the vest. Secrets of almost any trade are much more difficult to keep in this online age. But, as has always been the case, any two people can keep a secret, provided one of them is dead. This is not to say that certain people can't be trusted with certain confidences, but only that it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep information in the family.

It's certainly helpful to have the guidance of an experienced person, but, as you learned, simply seeing that something has been done is proof enough that it can be done, by even us mere mortals. A person just has to be prepared to do it wrong (or at least not quite right) until he figures it out on his own.

I, too, found the Ermatinger book (the "Scientific" guide) helpful, but considerably more valuable were the tips I got from a couple of experienced hat makers, you among them. I don't know if you recall any of this, but back before the movie deal left you without spare time, you answered a few questions and passed along a few bits of advice, which proved quite valuable. I appreciate it still.

The upshot, I suppose, is that even if everything you needed to know about hat making and refurbishing were made readily available, we'd still have very few people practicing the craft. The investment in time and money and effort is simply more than most people who ever considered getting into the business are willing to expend, especially considering what a shot in the dark it is. And if a person doesn't truly enjoy working with hats, well, he'd be well advised to forget about it. If his motive is mostly to make money, he'd do better in any number of other occupations.

 

[Fedora]

If his motive is mostly to make money, he'd do better in any number of other occupations.

Yeah, I agree. I started out by reblocking hats for free. It was a hobby. Something that I found personally gratifying. Only after I got the Indy 4 gig did I move from hobby to business. I was forced into it. I am one lucky guy. All I make are Indy fedoras, mostly what I made for Indy 4. And, the world is a very large market. It's a niche market for sure, but a lot larger than one would think.

These days when I get in queries on non Indy hats, I always send them to my friend Art Fawcett. If I were after a vintage- esque hat, Art is the man, period. And Art was kind enough to sell me the liners that appear in Indy 4. A beautiful side seamed, European styled liner, with the seam actually sewn. The costume designer wanted plain liners, (no time to research copywrites) and I had none. So most of the hats used in that film came with Art's liner. And he saved my butt. Some hatters are really nice guys!

And glad I helped you out too tonyb. Just passing on the help given to me. Fedora

 

[Tone]

Has anyone had a Vintage Silouhettes beaver hat made in something under 5 1/2" open crown? I see the lowest height is around 5 1/2" for his styles with the majority in around the 5 3/4" range - (C-crowners. ) as is preferred by the 30's crowd. But - does anyone have one shorter than that? Bet that'd look sharp in its own unique way off one of Art's 30's blocks.