What Hat Are You Working On Today?

[jeffgarf]

Ok, so while I am here in Israel, and with the Jewish New Year approaching, I have offered my services locally to men (here it's only men) wanting their hats cleaned, fixed and refreshed. My first customer brought me a hat I had heard about in rumors, but never seen, an Israeli-made fur felt with the brand name of Capello (not a lot of native Italian speakers here). I believe, until the Sunemar factory, posted about in a different thread, opened here, this may have been the only hat produced here locally.

This hat needed a good clean and steam and the brim needed to be sanded slightly, as the edges seemed to look frayed a bit.

 

[jeffgarf]

Now the fun begins! This one is going to be a blast to work on with with the tools I have (may need to buy a new wire brush to tease up that felt). This is an old hat from the hatter that now sells Fernandez y Roche here in Israel. Couldn't begin to tell you where these came from. After pictures to come.

 

[HatsBySam]

A little steam and a quick flange of the brim and it’s already looking happier

Finished up the bow last night, don’t have a strat pin, but found an old Stetson pin.

 

[jeffgarf]

Finished up the bow last night, don’t have a strat pin, but found an old Stetson pin.

Doesn't look right without the rubber band.

 

[Judgmentalist]

Finished up the bow last night, don’t have a strat pin, but found an old Stetson pin.

I love it

 

[jeffgarf]

Now the fun begins! This one is going to be a blast to work on with with the tools I have (may need to buy a new wire brush to tease up that felt). This is an old hat from the hatter that now sells Fernandez y Roche here in Israel. Couldn't begin to tell you where these came from. After pictures to come.

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With fortunately low expectations, I think I was able to make a difference for this gentleman and his old, lower quality hat. The cleaning and blocking were not so much an issue as was the sweat and felt damage that frequently occurs on these lower quality religious black felts. Removing a bit of the felt and teasing it back up with a wire brush helps, but nothing I can do is going to completely save this beater.

 

[RickP]

Finished up the bow last night, don’t have a strat pin, but found an old Stetson pin.

A Happy hat is a good hat

 

[suitedcboy]

I got this VS 100% beaver from Brent (Deadlyhandsome) that used to hang here. It was a 7 1/2 and I reblocked it to 7 1/4 with part going into taller crown (5 1/2) and the other to make brim a bit wider (3 inches). It does not appear as blue tinted in person. Such great felt!

 

[jeffgarf]

A great business team up between father and son. My son handles short-term rentals on properties here in Jerusalem. Now is one of his busy seasons. He had a client arrive who was complaining that his hat was crushed on the trip over. "No problem," my son said, "I got you."

I present the before and then after of an old school, Jewish market Hückel (at least 20 years old, if not older) with a 3 3/4" brim. That goes back a bit.

Before



After.

 

[GHT]

Ok, so while I am here in Israel, and with the Jewish New Year approaching, I have offered my services locally to men (here it's only men) wanting their hats cleaned, fixed and refreshed. My first customer brought me a hat I had heard about in rumors, but never seen, an Israeli-made fur felt with the brand name of Capello (not a lot of native Italian speakers here). I believe, until the Sunemar factory, posted about in a different thread, opened here, this may have been the only hat produced here locally.

This hat needed a good clean and steam and the brim needed to be sanded slightly, as the edges seemed to look frayed a bit.

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Shanah tovah (שָׁנָה טוֹבָה)
You have worked your magic on that hat, it's exquisite. Out of curiosity I checked out Cappello, they are an online store, there motto being, to bring the finest Italian products to discerning customers worldwide. That hat certainly endorses their motto.

Susquehana made the bespoke hat, my original choice was my Sovereign but the lighter colour of the Susquehana compliments the outfit Tina made for me, much better. We have an appointment at our bank later, the manager there dresses to impress, he is always complimentary though.

 

[jeffgarf]

Shanah tovah (שָׁנָה טוֹבָה)

Thank you, kind sir.

 

[hambone71]

So, I’ve had this Stetson Panama for 2 or 3 years and I’ve never really worn it because the shape never suited me. I was doing some felt hat maintenance this morning and it occurred to me to dig this Panama out and apply some steam to see if I could make it wearable for me. The crown has a bit more taper than I care for but I worked primarily on the brim. I dropped the brim at the break just a tad in the front and back. Gave the sides a little more curl towards the front. You could barely tell the crown had front pinches before. I deepened and lengthened those pinches to give a sharper contrast in shape. I’m satisfied with this shape and will wear it as a hot/warm weather hat from now on. Wish I would have done this months ago. I lost a whole summer of wearing this lightweight, cool Panama.

 

[HatsBySam]

So, I’ve had this Stetson Panama for 2 or 3 years and I’ve never really worn it because the shape never suited me. I was doing some felt hat maintenance this morning and it occurred to me to dig this Panama out and apply some steam to see if I could make it wearable for me. The crown has a bit more taper than I care for but I worked primarily on the brim. I dropped the brim at the break just a tad in the front and back. Gave the sides a little more curl towards the front. You could barely tell the crown had front pinches before. I deepened and lengthened those pinches to give a sharper contrast in shape. I’m satisfied with this shape and will wear it as a hot/warm weather hat from now on. Wish I would have done this months ago. I lost a whole summer of wearing this lightweight, cool Panama. View attachment 811154 View attachment 811155 View attachment 811156 View attachment 811157 View attachment 811158 View attachment 811159 View attachment 811160

Looks great!

 

[hambone71]

Looks great!

Thank you, sir!

 

[BrimReaper]

I spent some time today touching up the shape of this Akubra Snowy River I got off ebay for about $113 shipped. It came with a pretty aggressive taco curl, as seen in the first photo. I haven't really reshaped a hat before, I did a bit of one on a cheap fedora like 25-ish years ago, but all I really did was to make the brim less flat from sitting on the store shelf; so this is the first time I've ever really shaped a whole hat.

I took out the honky-tonk brim curl and tried to rework it back to the original shape, hoping there was still some memory to the felt that would help it ease back to its default shape. There wasn't. The stiffener was pretty much gone from age and adjustments by the previous owner(s), so an adjustment to the front meant the sides would try to bend and follow it, and vice versa. After a couple of days and sessions of making some moderate adjustments, I got some Kahl felt stiffener, which helped the unsteamed areas retain their shape when I focused on other areas.

I put a little more emphasis on the front pinch since one side was shallower than the other, and pushed up the top of the crown a bit because it had been pushed down, presumably to make the hat either fit a shorter head or just ride up higher.

I got the sides closer to the original shape, and put in a deeper front dip, since I liked the look of a deeper brim in the front.

At this point, I think I'm pretty much at the point of diminishing returns, since making any more changes risks affecting the other areas. I'm happy enough with the result to wear it daily... although I've pretty much done that ever since the day it arrived, just refined the shape over time.

 

[Judgmentalist]

First of all, I have no business in this thread, but as far as I know there isn’t a “What Hat Are You Destroying Today?” thread, so here we are.

Yesterday I destroyed a 63-year-old sweatband. It was a 1963 Adam, so not a particularly expensive hat, but it still hurt my feelings.

I wanted to see what would happen if I soaked it in water with a little Dawn, and I found out. The Dawn sucked all the juice that was left out of the sweatband and hastened its demise. The fact that this was possible, I believe, indicates that the sweatband was on its last legs anyway, but I don’t like being the executioner.

So I won’t be trying that particular experiment again. I’ve ordered some millinery needles, and I’m going to practice installing a new sweatband on this thing until I either figure it out or die of blood loss.

On the plus side, I did learn a bit about hat construction, though admittedly I could have learned the same information in a less destructive way.

I may also remove the ribbon and practice working on that, then get some of that naphtha gas and see what happens to the bare hat body once I have the ribbon off. May as well do all my experimental surgery on this one, I suppose.

This hat is at least a 7 1/2 — maybe 7 5/8. It was too big for me when it still had a vintage sweatband.

1963 Adam — We Hardly Knew Ye

Oh, and I almost forgot: I also jacked up part of the cool overwelt brim. God only knows what it would take to put that back to rights.

 

[jeffgarf]

First of all, I have no business in this thread, but as far as I know there isn’t a “What Hat Are You Destroying Today?” thread, so here we are.

Yesterday I destroyed a 63-year-old sweatband. It was a 1963 Adam, so not a particularly expensive hat, but it still hurt my feelings.

I wanted to see what would happen if I soaked it in water with a little Dawn, and I found out. The Dawn sucked all the juice that was left out of the sweatband and hastened its demise. The fact that this was possible, I believe, indicates that the sweatband was on its last legs anyway, but I don’t like being the executioner.

So I won’t be trying that particular experiment again. I’ve ordered some millinery needles, and I’m going to practice installing a new sweatband on this thing until I either figure it out or die of blood loss.

On the plus side, I did learn a bit about hat construction, though admittedly I could have learned the same information in a less destructive way.

I may also remove the ribbon and practice working on that, then get some of that naphtha gas and see what happens to the bare hat body once I have the ribbon off. May as well do all my experimental surgery on this one, I suppose.

This hat is at least a 7 1/2 — maybe 7 5/8. It was too big for me when it still had a vintage sweatband.

1963 Adam — We Hardly Knew Ye

Oh, and I almost forgot: I also jacked up part of the cool overwelt brim. God only knows what it would take to put that back to rights.

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Many a hat has lost its life in the service of further education.

 

[HatsBySam]

Many a hat has lost its life in the service of further education.

Amen

 

[TLW '90]

2 days ago I received this AUTUMN model outback by BRONER and made this custom band for it by wrapping a strip of leather with some gutted 550 paracord.

Today I had an idea to add just a little more to the band, and have it a spiral wrap with some 275 paracord going in the opposite direction as the pattern on the 550 cord.

I really like how it came out.

 

[HatsBySam]

Sad Borsalino needed some love, overall good condition, no felt issues, liner needed a good cleaning and the leather sweatband needed a good cleaning and some leather honey.