Repairing and preserving Un reeded sweatband in a vintage fedora

[bond]

I just tried out a new method for salvaging an un reeded sweatband that I wanted to share here.This hat belongs to another fellow lounger that had asked me to re sew the sweat originally.
The sweatband had popped most all of its stitches holding it in place the but sweat was still in very good condition. Usually with unreeded sweats its not so easy to resew them due to their fragility so I decided to use a thin piece of sheep skin cut to roughly the same size as the original sweat and with contact cement glued the two together to make one stable sweat that still preserves the original in appearance . I left the holes in the original sweat where it had been sewn as it provided a cup over the new sheep skin edge. The results are quite good and only caution is to be very careful not to get any contact cement on the felt but also align everything carefully as that could be a mess as well. After cementing the two pieces together I used a hat jack to apply pressure on them overnight before applying a new ribbon as well.

 

[winter_joe]

Wow! Love it might have you do that with a 30s Stetson I have.

 

[bond]

Thanks, be glad to do it for you.

 

[ManofKent]

That's a neat repair.

 

[splintercellsz]

Bond, now THAT is amazing! Great work, sir!!

 

[bond]

Thanks guys . Appreciate the feedback .

 

[kaosharper1]

I'm a little confused. Did you resew this strengthed sweat to the hat or did you glue it? I have an old 20s fedora and the sweat is in perfect condition except most of the stitches have popped. The original sweat is so distinctive I haven't had the heart to have it replaced since I was told it would need an entirely new reeded sweat.

 

[bond]

Here is a before pic. also. Ok so once you make a pattern out if your sheepskin or other material that needs to be sewn in like you would with a regular sweatband,After which the original is glued to it, carefully . I did this one leaving the sewn in liner in place, I recommend to cover all to avoid getting glue anywhere . Following pics show sheepskin sewn in place. Also had to figure out how to redo the seam as now circumference changed as well. This one had a hand laced seam which I cut and then duplicated on one side.