First refurbish/restore. Starting pics and in process shots, need advise!

[bolthead]

I just forced it over the mold, went the felt is wet it expand easily in the opening side (let say horizontal way), but a little less in the vertical way in order to make the brim wide.

I was wondering Al, is this felt Wool? [huh]

 

[jazzncocktails]

Hello everybody, I just wanted to share with you this new makeover that I did ( myself) to this old fedora size 7... I found in a vintage store. The felt is really lite and is easy to do any kind of dry bash. The Final is size 7 3/8 and the crown is not to tall as I like but that all the felt that I had [huh] . Anyway enjoy I hope you like PD: This time I tried a diferent bow ( "a la Art") sorry Art for the copycat...

Beautifully done, Al_Ojeda! I love the bow knot--care to share how you accomplished the two-tone look?

 

[jskeen]

Greetings and Salutations;

I've jumped into fairly deep water to start with and thought I'd post some info and pics, and ask for whatever advise might happen to float by. I purchased 3 hats from the same ebay seller, A stetson OR that I wanted to restore, a resistol Waco that looked to be in even worse shape that I intended to practice on, and a (ok, forgive me but it was pretty much free once shipping combined) fur felt Indy knockoff that I knew was a full size too small, but I could practice stretching to size on.

Links http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-3x-Stetson-Open-Road-hat-/110975899421?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&nma=true&si=f3gdetkz%2F%2Fy9fQRotX5kHYLFrB4%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Resistol-Waco-hat-7-1-4-/110975900080?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&nma=true&si=f3gdetkz%2F%2Fy9fQRotX5kHYLFrB4%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Indiana-Jones-Fedora-7-1-8-/110975900493?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&nma=true&si=f3gdetkz%2F%2Fy9fQRotX5kHYLFrB4%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

I could see that the two good ones were pretty grungy and stained but the price was within my (miniscule) range, and I wanted a project to play with anyway. So here they are as recieved

the Stetson;

The Resistol;

and the imitation hat;

a little worse than I had hoped, but not as bad as I had feared. The OR had some pretty significant moth bites, and some pretty dark stains on the ribbon and brim. The waco had no moth damage, but had a stain all the way around the crown above the top of the sweat that was much higher right in the front right side, as well as a pretty heavy dye transfer from the thin ribbon at the junction and on the left side of the brim where the tail of the bow sat. It actually will probably be the better of the two. The first thing I did was remove the liner from all three. I will freshen them up and re-install eventually.

I started with the Waco by removing the ribbon and a brass safety pin that had at one time held in a feather, but had corroded into a green sticky mess, that had amazingly not stained the felt, but had pretty much killed the original 3/8 folded and sewn ribbon. bummage! I then started working with a steam iron, tea kettle, white cloth and brush to clean it up, flatten the brim and open the crown. The sweat shows some wear, but is still supple and tight, so I flipped it up and left it alone. The odd stain around the crown didn't respond to mild detergent and brushing, so I ended up wetting the whole thing down and giving it a pretty good scrubbing. got most of the other marks and stains out, but the dark mark above the sweat stayed as did the ink from the ribbon. Not sure what if anything I can do about that. There are also some stains/fading along the original cattleman creases, which still show up after it's dried, that I would like to even out somehow. Here's where I ended up at so far.

Then I got brave and started on the Stetson. I decided to steam the crown open to start, so I flipped the sweat down and sat the hat down on top of a pot of boiling water to get some steam up into the crown, (which had worked fine on the resistol) but when I picked it up after about 30 seconds or so, the sweat had curled and shrunk into this useless mess;

lesson learned, go ahead and just hold it over the spout, don't sit a hat down with the sweat inside the steam, it may work once, but not everytime. Oh well. I went ahead and worked it over with some laundry pretreat, gave it a good bath in warm water and sat it on a bowl to dry. I'll be asking for some advise on fabricating a new sweat and installing it sometime soon. Considering the moth damage and stubborn stains on the edge binding ribbon, this one is probably a good one to practice sewing on anyway.

So that's the status as of now. I'll deal with stretching the Indy and replacing the sweat in later posts. I'm considering trying some dry cleaning fluid on the waco to try to remove the rest of the stains, and I plan to get by Miller hats downtown, or possibly out to Brookwood to talk to Neil Shudde about some new ribbons for both.

So what do you think?

James

 

[bond]

Buy yourself a handheld/ table top steamer for 40. and throw the tea kettle out,this will allow you to control the steam safely as we'll as being able to brush the felt at the same time.
You have the right idea going, good luck.
Ps watch out for staining when using water for cleaning.

 

[tonyb]

Ah yes, learning what to do by learning what NOT to do. I'd wager that a cooked sweatband is in most every hatter's personal history, James, so welcome to the Hatter's Institute of Hard-Won Knowledge.

But it's those mistakes that often take us to what might have been a better destination anyway.

You can indeed clean up a hat to some degree without taking it apart. But to make a significantly stained felt hat look reasonable close to new again almost always involves surgery -- you know, removing the sweatband and the liner (if it has one) and the ribbon.

And then you gotta clean it. Some stains respond to chemicals (some of those chemicals are quite nasty, by the way; there are numerous threads here devoted to their use and the precautions you really ought to take), and some to water-based solutions. But especially in the case of the latter, the hat body will come out of it looking as much like a dishrag as anything else, so a trip to the block is in order.

So, if you plan to make a habit of refurbishing old hats -- for yourself at least, if no one else -- there's really no way around getting yourself the right block(s).

And what's the right block? Depends on what sorta crown you're wanting, and your size.

 

[jskeen]

I'm already getting set for an extended session at the bandsaw and grinder/shaper to make myself a stretcher and a block/tipper. I just gotta figure out how to measure my noggin accurately enough to make a custom block. Might have to cast it or something drastic like that. As for the bash, it's going to be something personal, if probably not really unique, but at least not an outright copy. we'll just have to see how the wood and the felt want to collaborate.

 

[jskeen]

Ok, so WTF happened to my topic? Did somebody intentionally graft it onto a 3 year old thread, or is it just my computer that is somehow merging them? One of the MOD's having a bad day or something?

 

[RBH]

My day is quite good. And yes I merged it.

 

[jskeen]

My day is quite good. And yes I merged it.

Well, um, I guess that's your privilege, being the mod and all, even if the logic is not exactly apparent.

 

[RBH]

The logic is ...if you would have done a search. You would have known what could have happened to your sweat.
And also while a OK thread I added another to make a future search easier so more info would be there for the ones that needed it.

 

[tonyb]

I'm already getting set for an extended session at the bandsaw and grinder/shaper to make myself a stretcher and a block/tipper. I just gotta figure out how to measure my noggin accurately enough to make a custom block. Might have to cast it or something drastic like that. As for the bash, it's going to be something personal, if probably not really unique, but at least not an outright copy. we'll just have to see how the wood and the felt want to collaborate.

I'd like to see what you come up with. I'm all for new hat blocks, seeing how the old ones are a finite resource, and that the less desirable ones outnumber the more desirable ones by a large margin.

But, even so, for most of us, the blocks we want (and acquire) are the old ones, found on eBay or Etsy or through one grapevine or another. Most of us don't have the tools, or the knowhow, to make our own, and the outfits that make 'em professionally these days want quite a bit of scratch.

I've been told (and I've seen corroborating evidence) that a reasonably competent woodworker can indeed knock out a good hat block. I know of a fellow who worked from numerous detailed photos of a particularly desirable block (a No. 52) to make what looks like a perfect copy.

 

[tonyb]

I'm already getting set for an extended session at the bandsaw and grinder/shaper to make myself a stretcher and a block/tipper. I just gotta figure out how to measure my noggin accurately enough to make a custom block. Might have to cast it or something drastic like that. As for the bash, it's going to be something personal, if probably not really unique, but at least not an outright copy. we'll just have to see how the wood and the felt want to collaborate.

And ...

Before you invest all that time and effort into making a block, it might be best to get clear on just what type of block you want. Perhaps you know more about this stuff than I'm assuming you do and you are already clear on all of that. But if you ain't, just fire away with the questions.

Again, I'm all for people making new blocks. We could all use more suppliers, and it seems likely that those suppliers will be people who start out as avid hobbyists.

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

Cool make one of these.

This will measure your head exactly.
You could then use the pattern on a CNC lathe to make an exact copy of your head.

 

[RBH]

Ed, you should have seen the formillion Mike found on our trip to Florida.
The water had been to it for awhile...it was heartbreaking.

 

[Pa Fig]

Resistol Kitten 15 Refurbish - pictures -

Here are the pictures from my latest restore:

No starch - added.

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and the innards:

 

[DesertDan]

Nice!
I like how you cleaned it up without completely erasing its well-earned patina, well done!