Of Hot Glue Guns, Sweatbands, Terrycloth & alternatives. Opinions solicited!

[Rick Blaine]

It has been my (limited) experience, almost entirely with glued in liners, that hot glue seems to come off clean, leaving little or no residue, is cheap and good at what it does, eh?

Question: I have a number of hats mostly, but not exclusively, straws that need either size reduction, new sweats, more comfortable sweats, more absorbent sweats... and so on.

Possible answer?- I have purchased the following:

Ten yards of the above terrycloth material in black as well as a number of these-

(the bottom most- in black.

I propose to hot glue a few of these into vintage lids to make them again wearable/bearable/comfortable for the upcoming season.

Yea? :eusa_clap Nay?:eeek: "WTF are you thinking" or "valid solution"?

I would like some feedback, opinions and possible alternatives, if you please.

Thanks to all in advance!

RB

 

[Yeps]

I think that gluing in sweats is probably not a good idea. Liners are one thing, but I think that a sweatband should probably be stitched. I don't see any reason not to use a terrycloth band. It seems like it should work nicely. I am not sure why we use leather.

 

[fluteplayer07]

To be entirely honest with you, Rick (and please take this advice as friend-to-friend), I say this is a bad idea. The hat collector in me says not to do it, and the hat wearer in me says not to do it. From a historian's perspective, you will ruin the originality of the hat because alterations to a vintage object devalue it. This devaluation is not only monetary, it also will destroy the historical integrity of the hat. It is interesting that this thread is brought up now; I recently spoke with Art on the phone about a hat of my own. I sent him a 20's Borsalino that needed to be cleaned and reblocked. The stitching on the hat was almost nonexistant. To make it wearable, the sweatband would need to be replaced entirely, and the ribbon redone. It was a personal struggle for me; the wearer in me begged to turn this into something I could show off, but the collector and historian told me to leave it as is, and appreciate it for it's rarity; and if I could not appreciate it for what it was, then I did not deserve to hold it. Deep down, I was decided the moment Art told me it would need to be overhauled, but the struggle against my inner hat-wearer lasted the rest of the night. I am choosing to leave it as is, and sell it to someone who can appreciate and not wear it.

The struggle comes down to this every time: We are the guardians of history, to foster the prosperity of items older than ourselves so they can be shown to our posterity. They cease to be items, but instead are representatives of the people of decades before us. They are history, and we do not have the right to own or control history. All we can do is protect it until the next generation can take over for us. And with that, I urge you not to alter those hats which may be deemed historically valuable.

Now, I cannot in good conscience leave the argument at this. You will note the project that I have documented in several threads today. A hat that I made the decision to have resized and altered. This in a way violates the very principles I endeavored to preach at the start of this post. I make a distinction between vintage hats, based on where I believe their merit lies. The hat I found was severely stained (at that point, I thought fatally); it was size 6 7/8; and it was in a store that I am certain would never have sold it to a reputable hat collector. It wasn't particularly rare or special. I figured that by attempting to have it repaired, it would grant it new life that would never be available to it normally. In this case, altering its original form did it a favor as opposed to an injustice, because now it could be appreciated for something more than what it began as.

Everything comes down to how you perceive it; the morals you hold in regards to historical items, and the calculated decisions with which you can ascertain what is best for an item, on a case by case basis. There is no set formula for anything; it comes down purely to you best judgement. If you can honestly say that the hats have no historical merit to anyone in their current conditions, and alterations to them can only improve their value, intrinsic or otherwise, then I see no shame in renovating them. However, if it is only a matter of time, money, or convenience; they deserve to be handled properly by somebody else with the facilities to preserve them, as other hats will come along.

This is my opinion, not elegantly, not concisely; but to the best of my abilities, holistically.

 

[alanfgag]

Flute's essay on stewardship notwithstanding, I would recommend Fabri-Tac over hot glue.

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

The problem with sweatbands is that in the past they would replace them all the time. It was not uncommon and have a sweatband replaced during cleaning. I understand the whole keep as is historical nature. But I hate to see a hat stuck in a box just because the sweatband is bad.
A hat with a bad sweatband was most likely placed in a box and replaced by a new hat because the wearer was tired of it an didn't want to replace the sweatband. An the pristine sweatbands a collector so craves are from hats that never recieved the daily wear that a hat should recieve.
For me the value in a hat is in the wearing not in a box.

 

[Sam Craig]

Conservation is a great theme, provided you have yet another conservator in mind to turn hats over to in the years ahead.
As we grow older, however, it becomes more and more clear that there are many times fewer of we who want to see fine old hats preserved than there are people who are interested in preservation.
Most of the people who get ahold of hats today have no more value for them than the hippies wandering around a rock festival sporting an original beaver tophat in the 60s.
And good luck finding a museum that wants your hats, unless you have someplace with a lot more storage space than most of them have today.
As for your local college theater or local amature theater, expect the hat to get smeared with makeup and beat up until it is tossed in the trash.

The best thing we can do is enjoy our hats and, if you are lucky enough to find a young collector, PERHAPS get to pass on a few.

On the other hand ... I think I'd sew the sweat in. Hot glue has never been a friend of mine!

Sam