white gas or denatured alcohol ? NOW WITH BEFORE & AFTER PHOTOS!

[Rick Blaine]

I should think that any sorta volatile would work, but I did fail organic chemistry ...twice. So I was just hoping someone's experience might tend to recommend one over the other.
Reason :today I got this Stratton-"The Jacksonian"

great basic body & it'll make a great fedora, but being a Stratton, it is stiff as a board. As I going to have to upsize it from a 7 1/4 to 7 3/8 anyway, I figured I would soak it overnight in the decided upon solvent of choice & slap it down upon my new # 52 block & see what ensues. So if any of you kind gents might be able to help a brother out with an insight or two, lemme hear from you.

Many thanks,

R

 

[Feraud]

Caveat: I HAVE NEVER SOAKED A HAT IN ANY LIQUID AND AM NOT RECOMMENDING DOING SO!!

If shellac is the stiffner then denatured alcohol will dissolve it.

 

[Rick Blaine]

Thanks Feraud

I have actually had wonderful success with white gas for cleaning purposes. I recently got this ADAM LONGROYAL (Yeah, I had never heard of it either)

and I put it all in white gas overnight, next morning it came out two shades lighter with the block still intact, dried odor -free. Even the feather went in and came out lookin' like a million.

I was just wondering if there were a prefered solution to wash out stiffener or if they were all just about as effective. Ethanol may be the way to go, but it is more expensive than white gas so I want to make an informed choice..

 

[Feraud]

Hm, interesting. I am still too chicken to give a hat a good dunkin' like that.
Perhaps one day you would take photos of your process? I would love to see the before, during, and after pictures of the job.

 

[Snrbfshn]

I'm with Feraud...

I've got a number of hats that could benefit from a naptha or white gas dunking, but I'm a chickens--t.

 

[Art Fawcett]

Rick, white gas & naptha are only for cleaning. Won't touch the stiffner. Denatured alcohol will do the trick.

 

[Rick Blaine]

THANK YOU ART!

Thank you sir, thanks again for your generosity, that was exactly the conformation I was hoping to receive...
Grazie mio piazano !

R

 

[North Valley]

Touchy Stuff??

Rick,
Stiffeners can be very tricky!
I make felt hat stiffener for retailers in 55 gallon batches.
To break it down, you almost have to know the chemical makeup of the agents used to make it.
Basicly, some are water based, some varnish type based and some alcohol based.
Most after market stiffeners are alcohol based and can be somewhat broken down by soaking in a 99.0% alcohal - wood grain or methinol.
A lot of stiffeners that are added into the felt during the felting process are water based. (that is why a lot of stiff hats that have seen the weather too much tend to show the stiffeners bleedong out or the hat just seems to not have any body left to it), in this case, good ole H2O will help.
It can really be confusing at times.
To be safe, I would try the methynol first and then the water. You will actually have to soak it for some time to get it to break up though.
Best of luck with that.
Sincerely
Rodney

 

[tonyb]

I have a buddy who tells me there ain't much difference between white gas and the plain old unleaded gasoline you put in the car.
Is he right? Is there enough difference to render unleaded gas unfit for our purposes? I ask because where I live unleaded regular gas is selling for about $2.50 per gallon. Naphtha runs about $10, and I don't know what white gas costs.
BTW, I bought a reproduction copy of the "Scientific Hat Finishing and Renovating" book, which was originally published in 1919. The author, one Henry L. Ermatinger, recommends gasoline as a hat-cleaning solvent. But then, he also advocates for patience and sobriety, so I suppose we ought to take whatever he tells us with a grain of salt.

 

[Mark George]

DO NOT USE GASOLINE!

I did pretty well in organic chemistry. Gasoline is a mixture of all kinds of things, including oils, paraffins, and other weird chemicals. If you set a pan of gas out on the workbench and come back in a few days, there will be a greasy puddle left. These are the things that don't evaporate (longer carbon chains), and you don't want that soaked into your hat. You would have to use another solvent to try to get the grease out. Napthalene, ethyl alcohol (same as Everclear), methyl alcohol, isopropyl alcohol, and some of the rest are relatively pure and lightweight molecules, and will evaporate completely. Look out, though - those vapors are flammable. I have wondered if lacquer thinner would work on hats. It's a dandy solvent, and will get most stains out of anything.
Mark

 

[Rick Blaine]

Thank you very much

Rick,
Stiffeners can be very tricky!
I make felt hat stiffener for retailers in 55 gallon batches.
To break it down, you almost have to know the chemical makeup of the agents used to make it.
Basicly, some are water based, some varnish type based and some alcohol based.
Most after market stiffeners are alcohol based and can be somewhat broken down by soaking in a 99.0% alcohal - wood grain or methinol.
A lot of stiffeners that are added into the felt during the felting process are water based. (that is why a lot of stiff hats that have seen the weather too much tend to show the stiffeners bleedong out or the hat just seems to not have any body left to it), in this case, good ole H2O will help.
It can really be confusing at times.
To be safe, I would try the methynol first and then the water. You will actually have to soak it for some time to get it to break up though.
Best of luck with that.
Sincerely
Rodney

I will take that progression of steps, to be conservative about this. Thank you again for the benefit of your years of experience. Thanks for saving me much trial & error. I am not adverse to paying my dues, but I would hate to ruin a nice hat (again).How long do you think might be long enough to break down the shellac?

Insofar as cleaning, I have experimented with naphtha, white gas & ethanol & I must say I have found white gas to be the most effective, quickest to dissipate & the one that seems to leave the least (none really) residual fumes. I will try to make some photos this time, it really is just a primitive pour, dip, agitate & dunk in a 5 gallon white bucket sort of thing though, nothing fancy.

 

[Stoney]

Got a light?

Besides the leftover gunk in the hat....

It might be intersting to see what happens next when you light up a smoke, wearing the hat, after a soak in gasoline.

 

[Rick Blaine]

Not to get off on a tangent, but

...here is the correspondence to & from Stratton Hats today re: this lid-

Dear Mr. Stratton,

I recently came into possession of a hat made by your
firm as (I assume) a civilian hat & I was hoping you
might be able to tell me its approximate age? The
model name is "The Jacksonian" and it is an unlined light
brown center dented fedora type hat (though quite
stiff). Many thanks in advance for any help you might
be able to extend.

Sincerely,

Rick Blaine
Knoxville, TN


Re: Age of Stratton civvie hat?
This hat was made back in the early 60's for a federal department. The
name of the officer that helped us with the design was Jackson, hence
Jacksonian.

Regards

 

[John in Covina]

It's a Gas, Man!

I don't know what white gas costs.
BTW, I bought a reproduction copy of the "Scientific Hat Finishing and Renovating" book, which was originally published in 1919. The author, one Henry L. Ermatinger, recommends gasoline as a hat-cleaning solvent. But then, he also advocates for patience and sobriety, so I suppose we ought to take whatever he tells us with a grain of salt.

***********
1) White Gas is the same as Coleman Fuel as seen at camping supply places. It is very refined so not to clog or gum up those pump gas Coleman lanterns. Not like regular gasoline which should not be used in a Coleman lantern.

2) The gasoline that was sold at the time that book was written is barely related to today's gas. Don't forget Benzine was sold as Gas, now it is onlt a small ingrediant in some of todays gas. Stabil is a gas preservative for storing gas so it doesn't gum up in a car or can, which also points to automotive gas leaving residues.

 

[tonyb]

So it would appear, John. That very thing occurred to me after reading Mark George's post.
But I'm guessing that the gasoline Henry Ermatinger referred to is the same stuff that fueled the automobiles of the era. He went to some pains to caution against creating a hazard with the highly flammable stuff.
So ... how much does white gas cost these days?

 

[John in Covina]

Coleman Fuel

So ... how much does white gas cost these days?

**********
I don't have that type of lantern or stove so I haven't looked. Since it is the type of stuff most carriers won't handle, I can't find it for sale on line but an auction site said about $10-12 per gallon at sporting goods stores.

 

[Mark George]

White gas = naptha. You can get VM&P (Varnish Makers and Painters) naptha or methyl (denatured) alcohol in volume at Home Depot, Lowe's, etc. It's not too expensive.

 

[John in Covina]

Related!

Here is a Wickpedia link that gives the relationship. Who know there was heavy and light!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naphtha

 

[tonyb]

White gas = naptha. You can get VM&P (Varnish Makers and Painters) naptha or methyl (denatured) alcohol in volume at Home Depot, Lowe's, etc. It's not too expensive.

Yes, but that VM&P naphtha is the stuff that runs about 10 bucks a gallon at the home improvement warehouse stores. I and several others here have used the stuff -- to very good effect, by the way -- to clean hats. I was kinda hoping to find a less costly alternative.

 

[Kim Steiner]

Removing Stiffener

For what it's worth, I'm having a Stetson 100 renovated by Peters Bros. in Ft. Worth, and when I asked if they could remove the stiffener they said, "No." According to the woman on the phone, the stiffener was put in during the felting process and that it was there to stay (at least as far as they were concerned). I'm sure she was repeating what Joe would have said had he been in the shop at the time. The conventional wisdom, as expressed on these pages, is that stiffener is shellac. Well, as everyone knows, shellac is soluble in denatured alcohol. However, I wish someone would post that they had, indeed, successfully removed stiffener. I'm not going to the first to try, at least with this hat. Kim