Three Akubras & a Stetson

[H Weinstein]

Not sure where to put this post since it overlaps Akubra Overload, New Hats and Westerns.
Here are a trio of new Akubras, and a Stetson grabbed new and pretty cheaply on eBay (thanks to some fairly minor factory flaws).
These were all re-bashed using various bits of info and techniques picked up right here from you Loungers -- the amount of practical assistance available here is amazing!

This black one started as an Akubra open-crown Silver Spur (which oddly comes minus a lining, so I added a spare). New shape inspired by the low-crown hat James Garner wore in his late-'60s "Support Your Local..." movies and his 1981 "Bret Maverick" TV series. His had what looked like a metallic band, but I had to settle for silver-brocade ribbon...

I took this open-crown Akubra Boss of the Plains and went for something a little less stylized than the typical TV/movie western pinchfront. Plainer, taller telescope crown and less curl to the brim...

This sand-color Akubra Bobby came out as something inspired by the style John Wayne often wore -- moderately tall pinchfront with moderate curl on the brim...

Lastly, here's the lone Stetson, a Silverbelly 4X that was cheap because of a few smallish scratches gouged into the crown. Fortunately, those marks ended up hiding neatly in the double-teardrop ridges, and I sanded them a bit with a filing stick to make 'em less noticeable...

My wife likes my hats on me -- enough that she decided to get one of her own (she's the one with the horse in the family).
So we're waiting on a black Silver Spur I'll shape any way she wants.

A little over a year ago, I had NO hats (other than baseball caps), and NO idea that I could buy decent fur felt hats from Down-Undah and customize them to look exactly the way I wanted. I literally could not have done any of these without guidance from previous posts here and the answers some of you guys took the time to give in response to my specific newbie questions. Thanks for all your help!

 

[Terry "The Hat"]

Man, you have caught on well here. All of your hats are beautiful and unique in their own way. Keep it up and we'll be sending you our hats to have them bashed.

 

[H Weinstein]

Thanks, Terry. It's really fun to do, like making wearable sculpture. When I first started lurking here at the Lounge, I didn't understand how some guys had accumulated a whole bunch of hats. Now I get it

 

[Sam Craig]

H ... You created some great HOMAGE hats here.

The tan one reminds me of the hat Kid Curry wore on Alias Smith and Jones

I have always admired the Roy Rogers double crease. I'm sure you have seen his great western hat creasing tutorial on Youtube. If not, search youtube for "Roy Rogers hat" and it comes right up.

The black one DOES look like the Garner hat, both from Sheriff and from Maverick ... great classic look and the other silverbelly looks a lot like a Duke hat.

Terrific job.

Sam

 

[H Weinstein]

Thanks, Sam -- glad you enjoyed these hats.
You're on target with the light-brown one -- I've been catching up on ALIAS SMITH & JONES DVDs recently, and this one was deifinitely inspired by the later hat Ben Murphy wore as Kid Curry.

Yes, I did see the cool Roy Rogers tutorial video on Youtube after somebody mentioned it here. How great that it was both saved and posted, huh?
For anyone who hasn't seen it, here's the link -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OisMaRcdQI

 

[Sam Craig]

I loved the repeat trip into the shower.
There's a man who knew how to get western weight felt to mold.

What a great guy!

Sam

 

[H Weinstein]

H ... You created some great HOMAGE hats here.

The tan one reminds me of the hat Kid Curry wore on Alias Smith and Jones

I have always admired the Roy Rogers double crease. I'm sure you have seen his great western hat creasing tutorial on Youtube. If not, search youtube for "Roy Rogers hat" and it comes right up.

The black one DOES look like the Garner hat, both from Sheriff and from Maverick ... great classic look and the other silverbelly looks a lot like a Duke hat.

Terrific job.

Sam

Sam, I just accidentally discovered that Baron Hats will be making a Kid Curry replica hat, adding it to the rather nice (and expensive!) Hannibal Heyes hat they already offer. I'm pleasantly surprised to find that people of a certain age still recall ALIAS SMITH & JONES, which was a fun little series and a sort of spiritual descendant of MAVERICK (since MAVERICK creator Roy Huggins wrote most of the AS&J stories).

 

[hatophile]

Nice job on revamping those hats, H. You should enjoy them.

 

[woodrow]

Th same here, mostly ballcaps a year ago. Have several Akubra's(2 Snowy Rivers, an Angler) and am looking at a Banjo Patterson. Also have couple of Stetson Western hats.Like your hats.

 

[H Weinstein]

Thanks! It's so easy for more hats to sneak in the door

 

[Sam Craig]

Sam, I just accidentally discovered that Baron Hats will be making a Kid Curry replica hat, adding it to the rather nice (and expensive!) Hannibal Heyes hat they already offer. I'm pleasantly surprised to find that people of a certain age still recall ALIAS SMITH & JONES, which was a fun little series and a sort of spiritual descendant of MAVERICK (since MAVERICK creator Roy Huggins wrote most of the AS&J stories).

I love the look of both the original Maverick and the Hannibal Heyes hats.

I have been keeping my eyes open for the right black western to work into that.

This year I completed a Hopalong Cassidy hat project. It's mainly to hang on my office wall -- I don't wear a Hoppy hat very often.
But I think a Maverick or Heyes hat would be a good wear. I have a black wool car coat that would go great with one of those two.
Makes me want to keep my eyes open a little better.
Thanks.
I needed a project for this fall!

Sam

 

[Sam Craig]

Just looked at the Hannibal Heyes hatband again and, man, that would be tough.
I think it's Maverick after all

 

[H Weinstein]

Just looked at the Hannibal Heyes hatband again and, man, that would be tough.
I think it's Maverick after all

Hey, Sam! I just stumbled across this lady online who makes and sells a pretty exact replica of the Heyes hatband. She offers it as a finished band for $60 or a do-it-yourself kit for just $25 (both including shipping to lower 48 US states). She's got the correct conchos (no idea where she found them). The kit requires some leatherworking skills, but doesn't look too complicated. I expect to be ordering the kit shortly. Here's her link --
http://www.lazyjvranch.com/outlaw_heyes_hatband.html

I'm using an Akubra Bobby to make the Heyes hat, and I'm checking the AS&J DVDs to get some good looks at how the hat got weathered over time. By the second season, it was very beat up. I won't go that far, but do plan to give it some character character. The Bobby has a 3.6" brim and plenty of crown to work with and get the right brim-to-crown ratio.

Same with the later Bret Maverick hat I did using the Akubra Silver Spur (which only seems to be available at Everything Australian). The 1981 Maverick hat has a lower crown than the more generic hat James Garner wore in the old series, and the Silver Spur has a lower crown than the Bobby.

Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you with either your Heyes or Maverick projects

 

[Sam Craig]

That is great news about the Heyes band.
It would be tough to duplicate that hat without one.

I looked up pics from the show. I had forgotten about the concho belt that they used on the Kid Kurry hat ... big rectangle conchos.

I always liked the hat but not the belt band.
I like what you did for a band a lot better!

As I have looked at the pics, I think I live the Maverick hat the best, but coming across this Heyes band makes me reconsider.
I can't believe what they charge for this hat on the Baron Hats site.

Thanks for the suggestions on where to start.
It would be really fun to have the Hannibal Heyes hat, just to see if anyone else would remember that distinctive band when you wear it ... beside, It really is a cool hat.

Sam

PS

I was doing some more checking and your Kid Curry hat is much closer to the one he wore when the show first started. They added the weird belt band later.
I also stumbled on a pic of Adam Cartwright's hat ... not bad, either. Same basic black gambler but with silver dots on a black leather band.

 

[H Weinstein]

That is great news about the Heyes band.
It would be tough to duplicate that hat without one.

I looked up pics from the show. I had forgotten about the concho belt that they used on the Kid Kurry hat ... big rectangle conchos.

I always liked the hat but not the belt band.
I like what you did for a band a lot better!

As I have looked at the pics, I think I live the Maverick hat the best, but coming across this Heyes band makes me reconsider.
I can't believe what they charge for this hat on the Baron Hats site.

Thanks for the suggestions on where to start.
It would be really fun to have the Hannibal Heyes hat, just to see if anyone else would remember that distinctive band when you wear it ... beside, It really is a cool hat.

Sam

PS

I was doing some more checking and your Kid Curry hat is much closer to the one he wore when the show first started. They added the weird belt band later.
I also stumbled on a pic of Adam Cartwright's hat ... not bad, either. Same basic black gambler but with silver dots on a black leather band.

Yeah, the price on the Baron's Heyes hat certainly IS eye-popping!! Compared to some of the other replica hats they offer, the Heyes hat seems like an awful lot of $$ considering the hat style is really pretty basic, nothing tricky to make. I also think their hat seems too high in the crown and too wide in the brim, compared to the way it looks on Pete Duel's head in photos and DVD episodes.

No, I didn't really like the concho-chain band on the later Curry hat either -- just seems too fussy for a no-nonsense gunslinger. I did like the telescope crown without the pinch-front, so I took that. The band I used in the pic was temporary -- I'm planning to make my own wider band out of a nice, supple 1-inch-wide leather belt I found at a local thrift shop. I'll add some silver-but-simple conchos I found on the Tandy Leather website.

It's so odd that I found the Heyes hat band -- for no particular reason, instead of googling ALIAS SMITH & JONES, I googled Hannibal Heyes hat...and boom, the Baron's hat and the woman making the hat band popped up.

I totally agree with you on the Heyes hat and band -- even if nobody recognizes it, I think it looks great! I'll post mine here as soon as I get it done. I'd love to see yours, too -- whichever one you decide to do. Nice chatting with you

 

[Scott Hamp]

Hello, Mr. Weinstein. I've seen the main picture of this post for a few years and just joined this site today. Now, your Bret Maverick/Jason McCullough hat has what some people call a pinch telescope crown. The hat James Garner is wearing in the picture below has a closed telescope crown. And I saw you mentioned Baron Hats. Before they recently modified their website, they were making replicas of the hat Yul Brynner wore in the first Magnificent Seven movie. I'd seen that it was similar to the black hats Garner wore in the original Maverick series. Oh, by the way, some of the black hats he wore were genuine Stetsons. The best way for me to prove that is by suggesting you watch The Jail at Junction Flats from season two. There's a scene where the sheriff's deputy takes Maverick's hat off to look for something that might be hidden in it, and the lining is of a cowboy feeding a sack of grain to his horse

 

[BobHufford]

There's a scene where the sheriff's deputy takes Maverick's hat off to look for something that might be hidden in it, and the lining is of a cowboy feeding a sack of grain to his horse

Welcome to active participation in the Lounge Scott!

Are you sure the feed sack wasn't a hat? "Last Drop from his Stetson" was used as liner art for years.

 

[Scott Hamp]

Sadly, I don't own a Stetson, so I had to look up that style lining and I see what the cowboy feeding his horse out of. But if it is a hat, then that's what it is