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[thundurchasur]

Has anyone here cut a brim down with scissors and gotten decent results?

 

[deadlyhandsome]

Has anyone here cut a brim down with scissors and gotten decent results?

Sure. I now have a rounding jack, but it’s not rocket surgery
Scissors will cut the felt with no problem; the trick is marking it well before so you can keep the cut even. The pouncing will remove the small imperfections/unevenness as long as it’s minimal.


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[thundurchasur]

Sure. I now have a rounding jack, but it’s not rocket surgery
Scissors will cut the felt with no problem; the trick is marking it well before so you can keep the cut even. The pouncing will remove the small imperfections/unevenness as long as it’s minimal.

I'm going to give it a shot. I did iron the brim on the wool felt Resistol I posted the photo of but it's still not flat. I used a steam iron on the wool setting with a dampened dish towel. It's much better but still has a decent curl to it.

 

[thundurchasur]

New Question: Has anyone here wet felted their own hat? If so, is fur readily available felt-ready? I've found lots of videos but they all seem to be alpaca ranchers, etc.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

New Question: Has anyone here wet felted their own hat? If so, is fur readily available felt-ready? I've found lots of videos but they all seem to be alpaca ranchers, etc.

I think that n order to do it right and produce dense tightly felted hat bodies you would need a huge investment in machinery and equipment. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn there’s a DIY method, but I’d be shocked if the results produced felt that compares favorably with actual commercial felters. This is all based on logic and supposition rather than my firsthand knowledge.


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[thundurchasur]

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn there’s a DIY method, but I’d be shocked if the results produced felt that compares favorably with actual commercial felters. This is all based on logic and supposition rather than my firsthand knowledge.

There's a surprising number of videos on youtube for wet felting hats. One guy is in the UK (donutpanic on youtube) and makes felt hats from Suri alpaca. I just spoke with a woman this morning just a couple of hours from me in central Texas that has Suri alpacas and she's going to put together some samples of wool for me to practice felting before trying the alpaca, which is more unforgiving.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

There's a surprising number of videos on youtube for wet felting hats. One guy is in the UK (donutpanic on youtube) and makes felt hats from Suri alpaca. I just spoke with a woman this morning just a couple of hours from me in central Texas that has Suri alpacas and she's going to put together some samples of wool for me to practice felting before trying the alpaca, which is more unforgiving.

Interesting. I’m looking forward to seeing your results and hearing your observations.

I wonder if you can get a thin and dense felt. Most all wool felt hats of recent manufacture that I’ve seen are far too thick and spongey with a coarse texture. Depends on what you’re after.


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[thundurchasur]

Interesting. I’m looking forward to seeing your results and hearing your observations.

I wonder if you can get a thin and dense felt. Most all wool felt hats of recent manufacture that I’ve seen are far too thick and spongey with a coarse texture. Depends on what you’re after.

We both have some of the same questions. I don't have any answers yet but I'm thinking that the felt thickness is going to have a lot to do with the amount of material AND how long it's felted. From what I gather, felting is an ongoing process and is why a hat shrinks when it gets wet so I'm guessing that the longer the felt is worked, the thinner/denser it becomes but that's just purely speculation on my part.

This guy has a 90 minute on wet felting a hat out of Suri alpaca.

 

[belfastboy]

New Question: Has anyone here wet felted their own hat? If so, is fur readily available felt-ready? I've found lots of videos but they all seem to be alpaca ranchers, etc.

I realize it is not answering your question but it is related. I purchased a white 8X beaver unbashed western sized hat. I wanted to dye it a grey but the good dye requires a solution just under the boiling point. I stripped the hat of ribbon and sweat band and immersed it. It was a full western weight hat to start with but once immersed in the hot water that sucker shrunk up and continued to felt. I ended up with a really nice grey fedora with not much brim left to trim but the felt on it is now so dense that it might just deflect a .45cal round.

 

[thundurchasur]

. . . once immersed in the hot water that sucker shrunk up and continued to felt. I ended up with a really nice grey fedora with not much brim left to trim but the felt on it is now so dense that it might just deflect a .45cal round.

Felt body armor? Hmmm...

From what I understand; heat, water and working the felt make it denser. Not too hot though. Most say as hot as you can stand with your hands. The only difference between fine felt and soft felt is how long it's worked. Machines aren't necessary but do make it easier/faster but that can be overcome with time and patience.

The lady I spoke with this morning says she gets felt from around the legs on her alpacas where it felts natually from being warm, wet and massaged from movement.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

Felt body armor? Hmmm...

From what I understand; heat, water and working the felt make it denser. Not too hot though. Most say as hot as you can stand with your hands. The only difference between fine felt and soft felt is how long it's worked. Machines aren't necessary but do make it easier/faster but that can be overcome with time and patience.

The lady I spoke with this morning says she gets felt from around the legs on her alpacas where it felts natually from being warm, wet and massaged from movement.

I guess I’m just a natural skeptic. I do know that all the time, skill and patience in the world can’t always duplicate what dedicated equipment can produce. I also don’t think that you can get all fibers to the same density by just felting the fibers longer. Wool felt will not felt as tightly as beaver because the felt doesn’t have the same property (microscopic barbs and smaller diameter fibers). There’s a reason why pure cashmere isn’t used in felting fine hats even though it has a great hand and is relativity plentiful. Many fibers will felt, but they don’t all felt the same. Even when fine hats had some wool content they also had a fur felt component (except for some hard felt hats where felt density wasn’t as important as the felt was impregnated with hardeners).

I hope I’m wrong and you end up with the equivalent of pre-war beaver felt using wool. The proverbial silk purse from a sow’s ear.


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[thundurchasur]

I hope I’m wrong and you end up with the equivalent of pre-war beaver felt using wool. The proverbial silk purse from a sow’s ear.

The wool is to learn on and, if I enjoy it and see decent results, then I can proceed with fur. The question I have is this; does the machinery produce a higher quality hat or just larger numbers more consistently because the machinery is just mimicking what man was already doing by hand.

I wonder if a thread for wet felting would be of interest to anyone where fellow hatters could discuss techniques, material sourcing and so forth.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

There's a surprising number of videos on youtube for wet felting hats. One guy is in the UK (donutpanic on youtube) and makes felt hats from Suri alpaca. I just spoke with a woman this morning just a couple of hours from me in central Texas that has Suri alpacas and she's going to put together some samples of wool for me to practice felting before trying the alpaca, which is more unforgiving.

I believe you end up with a thicker felt product, much less willing to be hand molded after the original blocking.
Before trying it, you might want to investigate the way hatters learned to sort their fur by flipping it around in the air with bow like tools. It lands sorted into grades, so you could use the best sampling of what she offers.

 

[belfastboy]

Felt body armor? Hmmm...

From what I understand; heat, water and working the felt make it denser. Not too hot though. Most say as hot as you can stand with your hands. The only difference between fine felt and soft felt is how long it's worked. Machines aren't necessary but do make it easier/faster but that can be overcome with time and patience.

The lady I spoke with this morning says she gets felt from around the legs on her alpacas where it felts natually from being warm, wet and massaged from movement.

There was Kevlar now there is Beaver felt!

 

[Hat and Rehat]

I'm going to give it a shot. I did iron the brim on the wool felt Resistol I posted the photo of but it's still not flat. I used a steam iron on the wool setting with a dampened dish towel. It's much better but still has a decent curl to it.

Did you iron the top or bottom, and did you use the steam button? I would iron the underbrim, with the hat pressed tight to the edge of the table I was ironing on. Better yet is a half circle cut into a table so the hat needs less spinning around, and a firm surface with a hard edge is better than the spongy padded board people iron their clothes on.
I'll have to look back through the thread because I didn't see your pictures. My initial impression is that you're probably doing something wrong, though something with a very pronounced flange, like the stingy brims called Trilby, can require a lot of work.

 

[thundurchasur]

Did you iron the top or bottom, and did you use the steam button? I would iron the underbrim, with the hat pressed tight to the edge of the table I was ironing on. Better yet is a half circle cut into a table so the hat needs less spinning around, and a firm surface with a hard edge is better than the spongy padded board people iron their clothes on.
I'll have to look back through the thread because I didn't see your pictures. My initial impression is that you're probably doing something wrong, though something with a very pronounced flange, like the stingy brims called Trilby, can require a lot of work.

I just ironed the top but considered ironing the bottom. I used steam the first time and I used a spray bottle the second with better results. Here's the before and after.

 

[thundurchasur]

I want to get a hat block for making hats so I know I need to be 1/4 inch larger than my hat size. I wear a 7 1/2 LO. Does my block need to reflect that or do I just go with a standard round block for open crowns like a #51?

 

[Hat and Rehat]

It looks pretty good to me. If you want it even flatter, you need to change the upward curve where the crown and brim meet, the brim break. It probably had a factory flange that set a less than 90 degree angle there. What I suggested about ironing the underbrim will help do that, but consider what you'll do next. If you wantba really flat brim, like a campaign hat, you will have to stiffen it, probably with shellac. If you curl the brim edge it will have more strength, but may tend to sag or 'slouch' otherwise if you completely eliminate the original flange.

 

[thundurchasur]

If you wantba really flat brim, like a campaign hat, you will have to stiffen it, probably with shellac.

Thanks! I was just trying to see how flat I could get it but I think I'm happy with it as is for the time being.

 

[drmaxtejeda]

What's the ribbon treatment like on your Borso? Thin ribbon? From that angle it looks like it could be an Alessandria model, which is the Italian cousin of the Open Road.

The Akubra Campdraft was originally produced under Stetson license as the Open Road. They kept making the same hat but changed the name after the license agreement lapsed. It's still a popular open crown hat. At the moment, with the exchange rate today, they're running $112 at Hats Direct. To be sure the felt will not be nearly as nice as a late 40's Borso, but to the average passerby, the differences are somewhat negligible.

I didn't know that, Jared. Thank you.

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