Dying hats?

[Lorne]

Hello,

Every so often I will see a vintage hat for sale. The shape works for me, but the color doesn’t. Is it possible to dye a hat a different color? I'm talking about going from brown to dark grey or black. I have no problem disassembling a hat and putting it back together, so that’s not a problem.

Also, can anyone recommend dyes?


Lorne

 

[Fedora]

I can't say much about the dyes. That is, what brand to use, but the better the dye, the better the end results. What you will run into in dyeing is the difficulty in getting the felt to absorb the dye, to the core of the felt. The old hatters had a trick to help induce the absorbtion. It involved submerging the hat in the hot dye bath, letting it soak, and then agitating it. You would then have to pull the hat from the bath, and set aside to cool. This should be repeated several times. Soak, agitate, pull out and cool. You might do some research on different sorts of dyes. I started to look into this several years ago, and dyed some hats using Rit dye. I would not reccommend the Rit brand. The color fades out fairly fast. Sorry I could not help more. But if you are successfull, I would be interested in what brand of dye worked for you. Fedora

 

[mthatter]

erased by mt

 

[Victor]

I have had soem decent results using the Lincoln leather dyes available at shoe repair shops. I wouldn't try to turn a brown hat grey with them but have taken light brown hats and gotten them a nice dark brown after several applications. The felt tends to soak the dye up quite readily so you will need quite a bit more dye than you would need for leather, it also takes awhile to dry before being ready to be worn. The color can also be somewhat unpredictable so be sure to test it on some scrap felt first to get a sense of it.

 

[mthatter]

erased by mt

 

[Lorne]

Spray paint, Hmmmm...

Spray paint a hat?

Hmmm...would you have to prime the hat first, and do you use regular paint or Krylon?


Lorne

 

[Victor]

The leather dye does tend to be at risk for bleeding for some time but eventually seems to become more stable. I certainly wouldn't wear it in the rain a few days after dyeing it but after a week or so should be ok. Please don't hold me responsible though if your hat bleeds. i would experiment with a cheap one first to get the hang of it before dyeing your favorite vintage hat!