I've become my own guinea pig, I'm afraid.
Having recently taken delivery from Delmonico's of a Stetson Royal Open Road in Silverbelly, it is a bit large as expected. I had specified 7-3/4 rather than my usual 7-5/8 on the basis that other of my modern Stetsons have shrunk down to conform to my head, plus if I ever grow my hair back then my size 7-5/8 hats will all be too small, a horrible thought.
As an aside, this hat arrived with a "Long Oval" tag affixed to the sweat. I didn't specify that & actually had no idea that Long Ovals were even available.
Anyways the underside of the crown, with its nice white liner & gold-embossed Stetson logo, makes contact with my bald pate. To avoid soiling the liner I tried out my cellophane food wrap suggestion as reproduced above. Unfortunately the food wrap tended to cling to my head, apparently it wasn't engineered to be able to distinguish my noggin from a big hunk of salami. I didn't relish the thought of doffing my hat in public only to expose a sheet of food wrap clinging to my melon, hardly stylish. I also found that the cellophane food wrap lacked sufficient body to remain proud against the liner when tucked into the sweat i.e. it would sag.
Recalling that I'd seen some sort of plastic sheeting hanging in the aisle at the local Walmart, today I finally got around to fine-tuning my idea of a makeshift plastic liner to protect the native liner. The plastic sheets in question were found in the sewing/knitting/crafts area & are labeled "Ready Cut Vinyl". I bought a package of the medium weight, they were out of the light weight & the heavy & super-heavy weights seemed a bit of overkill for my intended purpose of a hat liner protector. The medium weight incidentally consists of a sheet 118 by 54 inches, nicely packaged to conserve space.
Upon my return from Walmart, using the hat's brim as a guide I cut out a corresponding vinyl piece. I had to trim it down a few times until it fit fairly well inside the crown, abutting the liner, with sufficient extra to be sandwiched between the sweat & the body of the hat.
I'm pleased to report that the vinyl is doing the job. It's robust enough to retain the requisite dome-like shape. It doesn't appreciably stick to the top of my head; now that I think about it, I have fond memories of sliding all over the vinyl seat covers used by my father & my uncle back in the 1950s & '60s to protect the upholstery in their cars against any peril to & including nuclear war with the commies.
The room temperature is around 62 degrees Fahrenheit as I type this with the hat on inclusive of my vinyl liner protector. I'm not finding my head to be excessively warm at all. Most of the year here in Canada the vinyl liner protector shouldn't be problematic. Indeed it's now below freezing outdoors & I suspect the vinyl will make the hat more comfortable in our wintry conditions. Effective tomorrow I'll be adding the Royal OR to my current rotation.
The vinyl doesn't completely cut off air circulation within the hat either, due in large part to my inability to use scissors accurately, a blessing in disguise in this instance. With a bit of thought & requisite hand/eye coordination I'm confident that the vinyl could be trimmed to purposely allow for circulation whilst protecting the native liner.
On this quiet New Year's Eve, in closing I hope that the entire FL membership enjoys a healthy & prosperous 2016.
