Ooops... that's not good.

[Tango Yankee]

Last Saturday I finally got around to finishing working on my brother-in-law's hat, a Brent (Montgomery Ward) stingy brim that had belonged to his father. When he gave it to me to work on it was in pretty bad shape--filthy, rotting sweatband, badly soiled liner.

A while back I pulled out the liner and washed it, and gave the hat a naptha bath. That was when I found out for sure the sweatband was bad--it started coming apart. The project was put on hold for a while.

Saturday morning while looking at the calendar I realized that Dennis' birthday was on Monday, and decided that I needed to finish fixing the hat back up so we could give it to him before then. Getting it out, I started to work. Here's a couple of photos of the old sweatband:

I carefully removed the sweatband. While handling the hat I realized that the felt still felt "off" to me. I can't describe it, but I thought it still had some grease or whatever in it and decided to give it another quick dip in the naptha. Off came the ribbon, and into the bath it went.

A short time later I pulled it out, and decided to put it onto a block to dry. Here is where it got ugly. While tugging down on the felt it suddenly gave way, like notebook paper parting at the perforations! I was horrified and mortified, to say the least!

It had given way along where the old sweatband had been sewn in, so my feeling like it had come apart like perforated paper was spot-on. Unfortunately, it had continued in both directions into the brim for a ways.

What to do? I finally decided that the best thing would be to fix it up as best I could, and return it with my apologies and another hat that he could use as a dress hat, since this one wouldn't fit that function any more.

I worked on sewing the split felt together. I found the felt parted easily, so had to be a bit more robust in my stitches to make it work. Once I'd finished, I sewed in a new sweatband and replaced the ribbon. Again, I found that I couldn't run the needle just part-way into the felt and pull it through--the thread kept pulling out of the felt. I had to go all the way through when doing the ribbon and bow. I was up until 2AM working on it. The next morning I used a glue gun to reinstall the old liner. Hey, it was glued in originally!

Here is how it turned out:

Fortunately, the tear was at the rear of the hat so it's not all that noticable when the hat is being worn.

With great trepidition we went to Dennis' and Denise's (AKA "The Dennys") house, where I explained what happened and presented him with the hat. Easy-going guy that he is, his response was to observe that I'd taken a hat that couldn't be worn and returned with one that could be--and that he'd be wearing it when he went to go see his father in Iowa again. His father has been ill recently, and to be able to wear his father's hat was something special to him. He liked the black Stetson I gave him as well.

I've heard of straw hats tending to do this when removing a sewn-in sweatband, but hadn't heard of a felt hat doing it. I can't put my finger on it, but the feel of the felt was off--nothing I can really put into words. I know that a Brent wasn't likely to be the highest quality felt in the world, but I still wouldn't have expected it to part like it did. I guess this is why hatters that work on vintage hats do it at the customer's risk! I thought I was being careful, but I guess I need to be even more so in the future. Or put the hat on one of my adjustable hat stretchers instead of a block!

Oh, well... all's well that ends well, I guess!

Cheers,
Tom

 

[J.T.Marcus]

Tom, What a story! And what a conscientious guy you are. It would have been so easy for most folks to simply explain what happened, and say I'm sorry. You not only went the extra mile, you went two extra miles! :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap

 

[Jfala]

Tom,

It looks like you did a great job with what you had to work with. Your brother-in-law is lucky to have you as a relative.

 

[Edward]

Sounds like bro-in-law is a pretty decent guy too. All's well that ends well, and all that. I think he's exactly right: he had an unwearable hat (that was likely to get worse over time, it looks like to me) and now he has one that he can wear. Given the sentimental value he obviously has invested in it, this is a major bonus.

As to the felt.... I still don't know very much about it, but I had assumed it would be like leather in that if it got too dried out, it would become brittle and subject to cracking. My Akubras from Hats Direct came with instructions not to dry them too near a radiator if I come in from the rain, which tended in my mind to support that notion. Given the state the old leather hat band was in, it's no wonder the felt wasn't at its best....

 

[David Conwill]

This is a great story. I too thought that what you did was wonderful - you gave life to a hat that most would have thrown away, which is a great thing no matter what. I wish I had found this site before I gave away/threw away/lost all of my vintage hats. I had no idea how much life there was left in them.

-Dave

 

[animator]

You did a great job! Like other people have said you took a hat nobody could use and made it useful and added to it's story. I'll bet your bother-in-law's dad will really appreciate all the effort put into reviving the hat. It may even get to be passed down another generation, now.

If people ask about the tear, your brother-in-law can say "it was my dad's hat". Enough said. He's a lucky guy.

Great work, great story, great post!

Thank you

 

[MrFusion]

That fact that you took on the task to begin with impresses me. How you made the best of a bad situation (and did a fine job with the damaged hat!) is even more impressive! :eusa_clap

 

[Tango Yankee]

Thanks for the positive comments and encouragement, gentlemen! Despite the fact I've been collection equipment for the past year this was my first major hat overhaul. To have had it go so badly awry left me rather stunned. If it had been one of my own hats, no big deal, but it wasn't. I had to do something!

I do think the felt itself was somehow going bad. (Maybe one of our professional hatters can opine here as to whether or not that's something that happens or is possible.) Perhaps as Edward suggests it was drying out completely. I know it had been up in an attic for years, if not decades.

I did learn a lot in the process, which will be applied to the next hat!

Thanks again,
Tom

 

[RBH]

Tom you did a fantastic job.
I have read about some of our hatters having this happen to them.
It is really common on hats that have had the whole sweats machine stitched in.

 

[Dinerman]

Well- I've had a couple brents, in fact, I think I've had almost this exact hat, a brent stingy in "black olive".

Anyhow- I feel the same way about the felt. It's fur felt, but it doesn't feel right. Kind of an odd stiff, yet floppy feeling.
And ripping seems to be a problem with them. I have my brent adventurer, a brown '50s model, that, when it came to me, had the brim was ripped off for about a quarter of the way around in the front, and about a third of the way around in the back. It had been sewn up by the original owner, but by the time it got to me, the stitching had dry rotted, and had to be resewn. After a week of solid wearing, over the summer at camp, the pinch, which had been thin to begin with, ripped into a hole the size of a quarter, seemingly by itself. The leather cracked on it, as a result of steaming, which caught the decayed plastic backing of the sweatband on fire. After steaming, the ribbon got stiff as a board, and hasn't been the same since.
They're my least favorite vintage marque.

So, it wasn't you- it's the brand, at least in my experience with them.

 

[Benny Holiday]

You really did your utmost with this hat Tom, when others would have long given up on the task. It was a big undertaking, but kudos to you for achieving so much!

 

[Twitch]

I'm sure the work is appreciated.:eusa_clap