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[deadlyhandsome]

A wool, and not felt. No leather sweat. Cashing in on a TV series style. I don't know how far I'd test the crushable and water resistant qualities. I don't want to offend, but I would have saved my dough for any kind of felt with a leather sweat. Those wools wear out in hurry when used hard. I actually do like a brown hat though.

The hat in question is felt. It’s wool felt, but it’s felt.

 

[Who?]

I guess it all depends on whether you’d rather have one good hat or three or four other hats.

Some go for more over better, and some go the other way.

In many cases the two groups spend roughly the same total sum, after all is said and done.

 

[Who?]

Just because two entirely different things are both called “felt” does not make them the same.

Their properties are very different.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

Felting is a process and not a type of material. Stetson felted plastic in the 1950s.

If all you have experienced is the cheap modern wool felt then it’s understandable to have a low open opinion of it. The wool felt hats made in Europe in the first half of the last century can be incredible.

 

[Who?]

Felting is a process and not a type of material. Stetson felted plastic in the 1950s.

Merriam-Webster begs to differ.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/felt

 

[ILB Frank]

Editing this to ask @carouselvic (and anyone else) with a vintage Stetson (or other brand) Big Four hat. I have two questions for you:
1) The brim is 4 inches - Is that 4 inches plus the curl, or is it a total of 4 inches including the curl?
2) How big is the curl?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

 

[johnnycanuck]

Quite so. Porkpies I seem to see available (and in a much wider range of colours) in wool far more often than I do in furfelt. Many of the wool ones I see look really nice, though it's hard to fully tell as with anything from a photo what they feel like up close, whether it's possible to pop the brim down at the front (not usually with a wider wool brim, though I've encountered one or two of the stingy type with a pp style shape where it seems to be possible), and so on. I think a lot of us who get 'into' brimmed hats can end up somewhat wary of wool - I know I tend to knee jerk prefer felt by a long way, but I'm trying in some cases not to automatically dismiss wool if it would do my job. I've been consciously thinking about this of late as there are some wools I really like. I think it works well for a nicely made bowler, for one. I've seen porkpies and homburgs in wool online in colours I can never find in furfelt (at least not without great expense and often custom work), so this is my point of interest here...

When I look at some of the hat pages on Facebook there are a lot of fancy coloured fedoras out there. I can garantee they are not fur felt but look damn good. I think there is a great market for hats at that price point. With Akubra hats now being about $200 Canadian I can see the temptation for the lower price point just to see if you like wearing hats and if a style even suits you.
Some styles are more prone to be made in wool, pork pies, Stingy brims, entry lever western hats. Let’s face facts the majority of people don’t wear hats daily and the seasons they do wear them buying a new wool fedora every other year to keep it fresh is easier then a big purchase ever decade of so.
Johnny

 

[johnnycanuck]

Felting is a process and not a type of material. Stetson felted plastic in the 1950s.

If all you have experienced is the cheap modern wool felt then it’s understandable to have a low open opinion of it. The wool felt hats made in Europe in the first half of the last century can be incredible.

I have two wool hats in my collection. One is an older Dobbs. Great shape, really rough wool but good hat all the same. The other is a Smithbilt Scout hat. Seen lots of camping and rain. Could use stiffening but has never shrunk at all.
Johnny

 

[moontheloon]

Merriam-Webster begs to differ.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/felt

Felt is a material

"Felting" is a process of heating, soaking and weaving of fibers via agitation

see here

 

[moontheloon]

Are you on iphone or android? I use Opera on android, which works well. Still prefer a "proper" computer for typing a response of any length with my sausage fingers, but that's me and the phone rather than the browser.

iPhone

Tapatalk worked nicely for a bit ... was just wondering if there was something like it that folks were using now

 

[deadlyhandsome]

Merriam-Webster begs to differ.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/felt

Depends on how you define it. It certainly isn’t unique, or even original, to fur felt. The word “felt” is not at all specific as to what the material is just what process it was made with.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

Felt is a material

"Felting" is a process of heating, soaking and weaving of fibers via agitation

see here

You’re having it both ways saying it is the “material” and that it is a “process.” I was just emphasizing that “felt” doesn’t tell us what kind of material it was made of just the process used. I concede it hat felt is a material made by a certain process.

 

[Who?]

You’re having it both ways saying it is the “material” and that it is a “process.” I was just emphasizing that “felt” doesn’t tell us what kind of material it was made of just the process used. I concede it hat felt is a material made by a certain process.

I think the point we are trying to make is that the word “felt” (which is a noun) refers to the material made of matted animal hair.

The word “felting” (which is a verb) and an entirely different word, refers to the process of making felt.

One (felting) is the process and the other (felt) is the product and the result of that process.

In order to be more precise, we need to add a modifier usually either “fur” or “wool”.

 

[moontheloon]

You’re having it both ways saying it is the “material” and that it is a “process.” I was just emphasizing that “felt” doesn’t tell us what kind of material it was made of just the process used. I concede it hat felt is a material made by a certain process.

I'm agreeing with you

 

[dkstott]

Hello old friends

What are you guys using these days to access the forum on your phone?

I haven't been on in quite some time and the old Tapatalk app seems to not be the thing anymore.

Looking forward to hearing from you old codgers.

Ant

Welcome back. Duck duck go is my browser of choice

 

[Who?]

Welcome back. Duck duck go is my browser of choice

Same here.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

I think the point we are trying to make is that the word “felt” (which is a noun) refers to the material made of matted animal hair.

The word “felting” (which is a verb) and an entirely different word, refers to the process of making felt.

One (felting) is the process and the other (felt) is the product and the result of that process.

In order to be more precise, we need to add a modifier usually either “fur” or “wool”.

When discussing hats, you can felt things other than animal hair. Stetson literally made felt from plastic in the 1950s. There is some reason to believe that other non-fur derived protein fibers were used in the old/original Vita-Felt hats. Despite what any dictionary might say, felt is any material made by the feting process.

I agree with the need to differentiate by using wool felt or fur felt etc. I don’t dispute the general superiority of fur felt, but I’ve also had a few old wool felt hats that were a revelation as to what is possible with wool.

 

[nvilletele]

In my usage, felt could mean fur felt, wool felt, cotton felt etc.

(I make my hat sizers from cotton felt from the craft store)

I too pretty much exclusively prefer fur felt, but I do have a few nice wool felt fedoras. Two pork pies by Kangol (their “Linotype” model), a Ben Sherman Trilby found at the Nordstrom Rack, and one Bailey that I picked up at that crazy little hat shop in Bisbee many years ago, when I somehow found myself hatless. I tried on a lot of fancy hats that day, but the Bailey wool fedora best fit the bill.

 

[capt_redbeard]

Hi all - I'm hoping to have your help identifying a Stetson fedora type hat. Going by the logo, it looks 1960s-ish. It's The Sovereign, size 7. The fur is a little longer than I'm used to seeing on Stetsons. Kind of a chocolate color. Adding photos here. Thank you in advance for your expertise!
-scott

 

[belfastboy]

Hi all - I'm hoping to have your help identifying a Stetson fedora type hat. Going by the logo, it looks 1960s-ish. It's The Sovereign, size 7. The fur is a little longer than I'm used to seeing on Stetsons. Kind of a chocolate color. Adding photos here. Thank you in advance for your expertise!
-scott

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If you use the Google search....."The Fedora Lounge, dating a Stetson." Threads will pop up and if you peruse those threads you will get the info you seek. One good indicator is the size tag.....shape/colour/font