The Conversion Corral

[Cornshucker77]

Absolute beauty Scott. Great save there my friend.

Thank you Rick, I appreciate that very much.

 

[NewJack]

One of my favorite lounge customers (Doc) sent me this Vintage Homburg for a conversion to make into a fedora style hat. The Custom brand felt is different than most felts Of standard brands but it turned out to be suitable for the task.
Navy hats can be difficult to match the correct navy ribbon with as this was case with this hat so I let it sit for a while and came back to it several times to find some vintage ribbon that would potentially work with this color navy felt.
I’d call this color ribbon more of a Bronze.
The liner and sweat are original and fortunately I was able to rework the felt without much of a problem there.
Here are before and after pics View attachment 163001
View attachment 163002
View attachment 163004
View attachment 163005




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Truly wunnerful!!

 

[Rmccamey]

Yes, I agree, that is an exceptional convert!

 

[T Jones]

Just finished up this Granite Gray Resistol Stagecoach conversion. The hat was gifted to me by a fellow Lounger. It started out as a size 6 7/8 and I blocked it up three sizes to fit me. I wanted to do something of a late '40s - early '50s era mid ribbon'ish' fedora so I got with alan who was helpful in giving me some ideas and showed me pictures of the nice collection of mid ribbons that he has. I also parked myself in front of a few film noir movies, as I usually do when I'm getting ready to do a conversion, to get a few more ideas of what I wanted to do with this hat....My thanks to the fellow Lounger who gifted this hat to me.

1. 6 inches tall straight sided open crown.
2. Creased to my preferred Teardrop. 4 3/4 at the pinch with a rake sloping to 4 1/4 to the back. Overall crown height, as creased, is 5 inches.
3. 2 3/4 wide snap brim.
4. 1 1/4 black ribbon and bow that I scavenged from a Borsalino. I gave the bow a little bit of an upswoop.
5. I reworked the finish into a Brushed Longhair.

Before:

On the block:

Making good use of a Band Block that was made by fellow Lounger, 'Rockwater', and I trimmed the brim down using a Rounding Jack that was made by Rick of the Phoenix Hat Company, another Lounger...

Deciding on a ribbon choice. I finally chose this 1 1/4 black ribbon with a double bow that I scavenged from a more recent vintage Borsalino:

Finished: I also gave the bow work a little 'upswoop'.

The crown is tall and straight:

From the back:

 

[Steve1857]

Just finished up this Granite Gray Resistol Stagecoach conversion. The hat was gifted to me by a fellow Lounger. It started out as a size 6 7/8 and I blocked it up three sizes to fit me. I wanted to do something of a late '40s - early '50s era mid ribbon'ish' fedora so I got with alan who was helpful in giving me some ideas and showed me pictures of the nice collection of mid ribbons that he has. I also parked myself in front of a few film noir movies, as I usually do when I'm getting ready to do a conversion, to get a few more ideas of what I wanted to do with this hat....My thanks to the fellow Lounger who gifted this hat to me.

1. 6 inches tall straight sided open crown.
2. Creased to my preferred Teardrop. 4 3/4 at the pinch with a rake sloping to 4 1/4 to the back. Overall crown height, as creased, is 5 inches.
3. 2 3/4 wide snap brim.
4. 1 1/4 black ribbon and bow that I scavenged from a Borsalino. I gave the bow a little bit of an upswoop.
5. I reworked the finish into a Brushed Longhair.

Before:

On the block:

Making good use of a Band Block that was made by fellow Lounger, 'Rockwater', and I trimmed the brim down using a Rounding Jack that was made by Rick of the Phoenix Hat Company, another Lounger...

Deciding on a ribbon choice. I finally chose this 1 1/4 black ribbon with a double bow that I scavenged from a more recent vintage Borsalino:

Finished: I also gave the bow work a little 'upswoop'.

The crown is tall and straight:

From the back:

Wow! I'm in awe, man. Really nice job.

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using Tapatalk

 

[T Jones]

Wow! I'm in awe, man. Really nice job.

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using Tapatalk

Thank you, Steve!

 

[suitedcboy]

You damn sure took that sow's ear and made a silk purse out of it. Great work!

 

[deadlyhandsome]

Just finished up this Granite Gray Resistol Stagecoach conversion. The hat was gifted to me by a fellow Lounger. It started out as a size 6 7/8 and I blocked it up three sizes to fit me. I wanted to do something of a late '40s - early '50s era mid ribbon'ish' fedora so I got with alan who was helpful in giving me some ideas and showed me pictures of the nice collection of mid ribbons that he has. I also parked myself in front of a few film noir movies, as I usually do when I'm getting ready to do a conversion, to get a few more ideas of what I wanted to do with this hat....My thanks to the fellow Lounger who gifted this hat to me.

1. 6 inches tall straight sided open crown.
2. Creased to my preferred Teardrop. 4 3/4 at the pinch with a rake sloping to 4 1/4 to the back. Overall crown height, as creased, is 5 inches.
3. 2 3/4 wide snap brim.
4. 1 1/4 black ribbon and bow that I scavenged from a Borsalino. I gave the bow a little bit of an upswoop.
5. I reworked the finish into a Brushed Longhair.

Before:

On the block:

Making good use of a Band Block that was made by fellow Lounger, 'Rockwater', and I trimmed the brim down using a Rounding Jack that was made by Rick of the Phoenix Hat Company, another Lounger...

Deciding on a ribbon choice. I finally chose this 1 1/4 black ribbon with a double bow that I scavenged from a more recent vintage Borsalino:

Finished: I also gave the bow work a little 'upswoop'.

The crown is tall and straight:

From the back:

Another great job, Terry! How do you give them the short nap longhair finish?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[steur]

Just finished up this Granite Gray Resistol Stagecoach conversion. The hat was gifted to me by a fellow Lounger. It started out as a size 6 7/8 and I blocked it up three sizes to fit me. I wanted to do something of a late '40s - early '50s era mid ribbon'ish' fedora so I got with alan who was helpful in giving me some ideas and showed me pictures of the nice collection of mid ribbons that he has. I also parked myself in front of a few film noir movies, as I usually do when I'm getting ready to do a conversion, to get a few more ideas of what I wanted to do with this hat....My thanks to the fellow Lounger who gifted this hat to me.

1. 6 inches tall straight sided open crown.
2. Creased to my preferred Teardrop. 4 3/4 at the pinch with a rake sloping to 4 1/4 to the back. Overall crown height, as creased, is 5 inches.
3. 2 3/4 wide snap brim.
4. 1 1/4 black ribbon and bow that I scavenged from a Borsalino. I gave the bow a little bit of an upswoop.
5. I reworked the finish into a Brushed Longhair.

Before:

On the block:

Making good use of a Band Block that was made by fellow Lounger, 'Rockwater', and I trimmed the brim down using a Rounding Jack that was made by Rick of the Phoenix Hat Company, another Lounger...

Deciding on a ribbon choice. I finally chose this 1 1/4 black ribbon with a double bow that I scavenged from a more recent vintage Borsalino:

Finished: I also gave the bow work a little 'upswoop'.

The crown is tall and straight:

From the back:

That is another great conversion, Terry. Excellent in every way. Do you re-use the liners of the converted hats?

 

[deadlyhandsome]

That is another great conversion, Terry. Excellent in every way. Do you re-use the liners of the converted hats?

Or one of the liners @DOGMAN makes.


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[T Jones]

That is another great conversion, Terry. Excellent in every way. Do you re-use the liners of the converted hats?

Thank you, steur. I reuse anything that can go back into the hat. I was able to reuse the sweat bow and the LO tag, which I sewed onto the new sweat. The original liner was too small to reuse after the size up. But I did have another Resistol liner that was like new that I put in the hat.

 

[T Jones]

Or one of the liners @DOGMAN makes.


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Ha! His liners are for starin', not for wearin'! Id spend too much time just looking at them all day long! Those are some niiiice looking liners!

 

[scottyrocks]

One of my favorite lounge customers (Doc) sent me this Vintage Homburg for a conversion to make into a fedora style hat. The Custom brand felt is different than most felts Of standard brands but it turned out to be suitable for the task.
Navy hats can be difficult to match the correct navy ribbon with as this was case with this hat so I let it sit for a while and came back to it several times to find some vintage ribbon that would potentially work with this color navy felt.
I’d call this color ribbon more of a Bronze.
The liner and sweat are original and fortunately I was able to rework the felt without much of a problem there.
Here are before and after pics View attachment 163001
View attachment 163002
View attachment 163004
View attachment 163005

Wow, that is sharp!

 

[T Jones]

Finally getting around to posting my most recent conversion. This was a fun little conversion project and is going to be my outside activities hat. It started out as a hat that was made by Stratton for the New York State Highway Patrol, purple ribbon and all. It was too small for me so I blocked it up to a 7 1/4 to fit me and I made a thin ribbon fedora out of it. It has two vent holes on each side of the crown and slots on both sides of the brim for a head strap. I replaced the purple ribbon and sewed on a two ply thin ribbon with a very simple bow. It has a tall straight crown that's creased to my preferred Teardrop. As creased, the crown is 4 3/4 at the pinch with a rake sloping to 4 inches in the back and has a 2 3/4 snap brim.

Before:

On the block:

Open Crown and flanged 2 3/4 snap brim:

Completed and creased:

Two ply thin ribbon with a simple bow and keeper:

On the head from a few different angles:

http://www.nysth.com/uniforms.html?...I2eEvobJtS1nu-FOA2xPbgjT3mBjmWYFUSRQ0NIP7p-mw

 

[Steve1857]

Finally getting around to posting my most recent conversion. This was a fun little conversion project and is going to be my outside activities hat. It started out as a hat that was made by Stratton for the New York State Highway Patrol, purple ribbon and all. It was too small for me so I blocked it up to a 7 1/4 to fit me and I made a thin ribbon fedora out of it. It has two vent holes on each side of the crown and slots on both sides of the brim for a head strap. I replaced the purple ribbon and sewed on a two ply thin ribbon with a very simple bow. It has a tall straight crown that's creased to my preferred Teardrop. As creased, the crown is 4 3/4 at the pinch with a rake sloping to 4 inches in the back and has a 2 3/4 snap brim.

Before:

On the block:

Open Crown and flanged 2 3/4 snap brim:

Completed and creased:

Two ply thin ribbon with a simple bow and keeper:

On the head from a few different angles:

http://www.nysth.com/uniforms.html?...I2eEvobJtS1nu-FOA2xPbgjT3mBjmWYFUSRQ0NIP7p-mw

Congrats Terry, you've done it again, great job. From one working hat to another. Sure looks cool as a Fedora.

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using Tapatalk

 

[deadlyhandsome]

Finally getting around to posting my most recent conversion. This was a fun little conversion project and is going to be my outside activities hat. It started out as a hat that was made by Stratton for the New York State Highway Patrol, purple ribbon and all. It was too small for me so I blocked it up to a 7 1/4 to fit me and I made a thin ribbon fedora out of it. It has two vent holes on each side of the crown and slots on both sides of the brim for a head strap. I replaced the purple ribbon and sewed on a two ply thin ribbon with a very simple bow. It has a tall straight crown that's creased to my preferred Teardrop. As creased, the crown is 4 3/4 at the pinch with a rake sloping to 4 inches in the back and has a 2 3/4 snap brim.

Before:

On the block:

Open Crown and flanged 2 3/4 snap brim:

Completed and creased:

Two ply thin ribbon with a simple bow and keeper:

On the head from a few different angles:

http://www.nysth.com/uniforms.html?...I2eEvobJtS1nu-FOA2xPbgjT3mBjmWYFUSRQ0NIP7p-mw

Looks great, Terry. I’m curious if you think the vent holes help any? Your conversions are great...any plans for the purple ribbon and campaign bow it came with?


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[T Jones]

Looks great, Terry. I’m curious if you think the vent holes help any? Your conversions are great...any plans for the purple ribbon and campaign bow it came with?


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Thank you buddy! Can't really say yet about the vent holes as to how effective they may be. Although I did notice they did pretty fair in a breeze when I wore it today.
As far as the purple ribbon, I was curious to see how it would look against grey or black. I would probably change the bow. For me, it's too wide for that kind of bow style. I would do a more traditional bow with it.

 

[T Jones]

Congrats Terry, you've done it again, great job. From one working hat to another. Sure looks cool as a Fedora.

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using Tapatalk

Thank you buddy!

 

[T Jones]

Finished up this Brown 4X Stetson a few days ago. This was gifted to me by a fellow Lounger. This one started out with a Longhair finish and I kept it that way. It was also a size larger than I wear and I blocked it down to a 7 1/4 to fit me. This one came out to be a pretty nice looking hat. Though not intended in anyway what so ever to be a replica, I used Alan Ladd's 'China' hat as a model for creating this one, except with my own touches. The specs for this hat are as follows...it has a straight sided six inches tall open crown that's creased to my preferred Teardrop. It's 4 7/8 at the pinch with a rake sloping to 4 1/8 inches to the back. The overall height of the crown, as creased, is five inches. The snap brim is 2 5/8 wide. I also found a vintage black 1 5/8 ribbon and bow to sew on it. I was also able to cut down the original sweat to my size and reuse it, along with the original reed and ferrule, as well as reusing the original sweat bow and size tag. I'm also reusing the original liner...

Before:

On the block:

The original sweat cut down:

Checking the sweat for fit. Perfect!

The original sweat bow and size tag were also salvaged and sewn back onto the sweat...

Brim cut down to 2 5/8

Finished: Tall straight crown with a tight pinch...

 

[T Jones]

My next project. Black Beaver Brand. I blocked it up two sizes from a 7 to a 7 1/4. Leaning towards a thin ribbon for this one, maybe even a mid ribbon if for some reason I can't locate some black 3/8. I'll have more later.