Sizes For New Hat Blocks

[DarrelMorris]

I am going to be making a few new hat blocks. What are the 4 most common sizes? One will of course be my size, but I want the rest of them to be as useful as possible.

 

[job]

I would say 7 1/8 -7 1/2.

 

[hatsRme]

7 -- 7-3/8 is my guess. Although you might also whittle out a 7-3/4 XLO, just to be sure... (that's my size)

I'm sure "harder," accurate numbers do exist somewhere in the industry.

 

[winter_joe]

I think 7 3/4 and 7 5/8 should be high on your list as it seems most people I know here have a big noodle haha.

 

[tonyb]

I don't know that there's any empirical data (indeed, I'm all but certain there isn't), but anecdotally I can offer that the large majority of adult American male hat buyers are somewhere between a 7 1/8 and a 7 1/2, as our friend job already observed.

However, a small but still significant percentage of guys have larger noggins, and (again, anecdotally) a smaller but still considerable percentage are smaller.

So which "useful" sizes you wish to make would depend on the uses you have in mind. In a perfect world, a hatter would have a block in every imaginable style and size (including the long ovals, etc.), but the world has never been perfect (both shelf space and budgets are limited) so the hatter has always had to make do. As I noted in another thread, you can "cap" a block to make it effectively one size larger, for instance.

You'll be needing flanges at some point. Flanges are still underpriced, by my way of seeing it. I believe they're harder to make than crown blocks, but they don't seem to sell for as much. Both are in finite supply, of course, so I expect prices to escalate, what with the growing interest in "proper" men's hats. But if capable sorts come in to meet that demand and increase the supply, well ...

 

[DarrelMorris]

Yeah. I would love some flanges...and shackle curl tools and...and...

Most of what I do I kind of have to figure out how to do it by hand and make do.

 

[cafayzieg]

Uh...
Different people with different perspectives.