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

[Feraud]

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

I wonder why Peters Bros. is saying that? Stiffner will not stay "indefinitely". With handling and use the hat will become softer. My Akubra Federation Deluxe was as hard as a construction site hardhat when I first got it. With normal use is has become soft. What is happening in my case?
I believe the company did not want to accommodate you.
If shellac is used as a stiffner then d.n. will dissolve it.

 

[jkingrph]

What about acetone, or xylene? Both are excellent solvents. Acetone evaporates very fast. Xylene is a component of many " carburator, fuel injector cleaners" so will remove a lot of gums and tarry stains.

With either acetone or lacquer thinner you must be careful of synthetics such as ribbons. Also the plastic liner in top of many hats may be dissolved or damaged by these solvents.

As a note back in my college days, in chemistry classes water was known as the universal solvent. It just has the habit of causing many fabrics, fibers to shrink. In organic lab we often used acetone for a final cleaner for that that soap and water would not clean.

Jeff

 

[SHARPETOYS]

The hatter said....

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

Denatured alcohol.....

 

[EricH]

Did you know?

Fun fact time: Traditional shellac is made from insects. Yum
That's right. Fedoras are made of dead beavers and squished bugs.

www.sitaram.com (see the site for all the facts)

Oh and anyone who has stripped furniture knows. Only denatured alcohol works on shellac

STICKLAC

It is the resinous secretion of a kind of tiny insect known as Laccifer lacca which belongs to the family of a scale of insect and mealy bugs of super family “Coccoidea”. Billions of these small insects settle on fresh and juicy branches of certain types of trees known as lac host trees. The main lac host trees are Palas, Ber and Kusum. The insects settle on the branches as parasites and go on secreting resin and wax. After a certain period of time the insects mature and spread over other branches directly or through artificial inoculation. On an average three hundred thousand insects produce one kilogram of lac resin. Sticklac is the basic raw material and is allowed to be exported from India. It contains about 50-60% impurity

SEEDLAC

Sticklac is first crushed and sieved to remove certain impurities. It is then washed in large vats or barriers to remove insect bodies and a portion of the colouring matter. Washing is repeated until the dye and most of the impurities are removed. The Sticklac thus cleaned is spread on large clean open air floor to dry. After drying it is winnowed and sieved to get the commercial variety of Seedlac. It contains around 3-5% impurity. Seedlac as mostly used for conversion into Bleached Lac and different types of Shellac. U.S.A., Germany, U.K. and Japan are the main buyers of Indian Seedlac.

MACHINE MADE SHELLAC
Is produced in two different ways- one is the heat process where the same principle as in the case of hand made shellac is applied and the second is solvent process where pure shellac is extracted from Seedlac by suitable solvents. Under heat process the separation of pure lac is achieved by melting Seedlac by steam heat and squeezing the soft molten lac through filter my means of hydraulic presses. The molten lac is then stretched by means of rollers into long continuous sheet which is broken into pleces to form the machine made Shellac under heat process. This shellac has an impurity content varying from 0.5 to about 1%. There are various grades under heat process machine made shellac. The most popular being TN, Lemon and Orange. These grades are exported to practically all lac consuming countries.

 

[John in Covina]

Cleaning the cleaner.

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

**********
Part one-
It has been done: I recall Art Fawcett had a story in a thread about soaking a hat in a 5 gallon bucket in Denatured Alcohol to remove the shellac stiffener. It was succesful in that instance but took a fair amount of alcohol.

Part two-
A question is that once these fluids have been used can the dirt and oil be stripped out of them to allow some re-use?

If left to my own devices i would try a variety of filtration elements.

There are the paper coffee filters to take out some of the particulate matter.

Then charcoal has been used as a filter for many things. Jack Daniels & Gentleman Jack use I think maple wood charcoal which strips off the fusil oils that make for headaches.

Many water systems use a charcoal layer for filtration. Activated charcoal is supposed to be available at the drug store and is supposed to be a good filter charcoal. The first pour thru will probably wash loose stuff off the charcoal so it may have to go thru a few times. I figure such homemade filtering of alcohol or naptha would not strip all of the oil and grease out but would get it pretty close and allow for a couple or more re-uses, again just a guess on my part.

Wonder what the dry cleaners do? In manufacturing their degreasing solvents are re-used alot so they must be "recovered" some how.

 

[Stoney]

I think if you're going to constuct your own charcoal filter, you want to ensure that you rinse the charcoal well first to remove the dust. Otherwise sounds like a reasonable approach.

 

[Art Fawcett]

OK, I'll try to answer in more detail but please remember, I'm not a chemist so my answers will be limited. Another "disclaimer". I will not do the stiffner removal for clients hats for several reasons. When a hat is sent to me it is expected to be returned in "perfect" condition. Many manufacturers use powders, etc that if washed out will leave the hat in "imperfect" condition thus leading to problems between myself & the client. This is most likely why Joe answered the way he did. There is such a high risk that it's just not worth it. You can ruin your hat, a hatter cannot without penalty.

That being said, I have soaked raw bodies to remove what stiffner I can using just plain denatured alcohol. Normal is to soak it for a day but I have gone as far as 3 days. The results have been pretty nice as to texture of the finished body and it's pliability. Generally speaking, in a dress body pure beaver, only the darker colors need this treatment to get the feel I want.

As for filtering the alcohol? I believe it is cheaper to just throw it out after about 10 hats. First, it evaporates pretty quickly so it diminishes, second, the particles left in it are shellac based, not dirt ( in my usage). I'm sure there are filtering systems ie: dry cleaning recovery systems, however you'd better be doing hundreds of hats per month to make the numbers work out. They can easily run into MANY thousands of $.

I'm sure Rodney can add to this thread as he has much more experience than I when dealing with stiffer bodies. How about it Rodney? anything to add?

 

[North Valley]

Reply to Art

You say it right Art.
My thoughts are that when you buy a hat new, you should buy what you want from the start. Soft, stiff or whatever.
To take a new hat and go through all that it takes to make it what you want it to be can sometimes cost more than it would have been to just order one the way you want it from the start.
Factory hats are what they are.
Sincerely
Rodney

 

[Rick Blaine]

Thanks to all

for their knowledgeable input on the question at hand. The hat went in to the alcohol at noon today, I'll fish it out tomorrow afternoon and see what's transpired.
Since the crown was a good deal softer than the brim, I can't help but conclude that the stiffener was something applied after the creation of the felt itself, but since both got dunked, I guess I see to what degree the whole thing relaxes.
By-the-by, around here dn. alcohol runs about $13 a gallon, naphtha a little more, but Coleman fuel is only $7 and change. And for the record, so far none of these has adversely affected any of the other parts of the hat in the least.

 

[John in Covina]

for their knowledgeable input on the question at hand. The hat went in to the alcohol at noon today, I'll fish it out tomorrow afternoon and see what's transpired.
Since the crown was a good deal softer than the brim, I can't help but conclude that the stiffener was something applied after the creation of the felt itself, but since both got dunked, I guess I see to what degree the whole thing relaxes.
By-the-by, around here dn. alcohol runs about $13 a gallon, naphtha a little more, but Coleman fuel is only $7 and change. And for the record, so far none of these has adversely affected any of the other parts of the hat in the least.

**************
Before and after pix possible?

 

[Rick Blaine]

You betcha!

**************
Before and after pix possible?

The above photo will have to suffice for the before, but the digital camera is at home, so I'll be sure to post a follow-up after it is dry.

 

[RBH]

**********
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.

The last Coleman fuel I bought [ one gallon, about a month ago] was roughly half the price of a one gallon of Naptha. The fuel [around $6]was from Wal-Mart and the Naptha [around $12]was priced at Ace.

 

[Rick Blaine]

THE RESULTS

BEFORE:

Because my lidded 5 gal. white plastic bucket would've warped the hats brim, I lined a cardboard box with a lg. plastic trashbag, double layered. Into that I poured about 1/2 gal. of the denatured alcohol. I sealed it up tight & left it for 24 hrs. I agitated it every now & then & because the trash bag was flexible I also kneaded the brim in the alcohol to work it into the felt.
When I took it out the next day the brim was considerably softer. I pulled it down over my hat block & smoothed it out.

After it dried I re- lexoled the sweat, back & front , and bashed it:

3/4 View:

 

[RBH]

Good job Rick, you have a really nifty looking fedora there!

 

[Duck]

Good job, Rick!!!!!!!! One fine looking fedora.:eusa_clap

 

[riccardo]

Good job, very good.
But, I haven't understood yet what's naphta!!!
Maybe naphta is "kerosene"?

Isn't there anyone that could translate naphta for me?
Where is dzacca????

dzacca, help me!!
Best regards.
Riccardo

 

[RBH]

But, I haven't understood yet what's naphta!!!
.... help me!!
Best regards.
Riccardo

Ric, maybe this will help you out. Good luck!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naphtha

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-naphtha.html

 

[riccardo]

Ric, maybe this will help you out. Good luck!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naphtha

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-naphtha.html

Many thanks RBH, I've read this "Technically, gasoline and kerosene are considered naphthas. " so could I use kerosene to clean my hats??
I'll start the countdown ... if anyone have to tell me anything let's do it!
When the countdown will finished I put my hat in a can full of kerosene. help me.lol lol lol lol

Many thanks.
Riccardo.

 

[Stoney]

Where in Sicily?

Ricardo,


fftopic:
Just curious as t where is Sicily you live. I was stationed there, near Catania, at Sigonella back in 1981 and loved living in Sicily. People there really know how to live life without getting bogged down with modern problems. It seems that in Sicilia , domani is the answer for many things that Americans must do today.

BTW .. I'd not use that kerosine...lol

 

[astaire]

Riccardo, if you want to try kerosene on your hat, please do it with one of your lesser value hat.

I would be sad to see a beautiful Borsalino ruined

Ciao!