Gave my Akubra a makeover

[TheBeak]

so a while back I got a good deal on an Akubra snowy river (special made for a retailer, with a thin ribbon). Really nice well made hat, but I found I never wore it. Fit fine, just too western for my taste.

After some back and forth with myself, I decided to just change it to something I would wear. Today I did just that.

A) I cut the brim down about 3/4 inch (had to make a rounding jack)
B) I steamed the brim flat to get that "wave" out of it, then some more to get it to a snap brim (used the curvature of a "D" cell maglite to get the curvature semi-consistent)
C) I steamed the crown open, then steamed it to a diamond crease (was inspired by some Howard Hughes photos I saw earlier today)
D) removed the thin ribbon, and fashioned a new grosgrain ribbon.

I have a few pictures from the process after it caught my wife's attention (the ribbon is a very dark blue, nearly black in some light, but bright blue under camera flash):

Rounding Jack:

Making bow:

Bow nearly complete:

Fitting the ribbon:

Sewing the ribbon to the hat:

Complete!!!

The complete hat seen through the ring of felt I cut off:

Anyway, its back on my VS hat block now stretching back to proper size, but as for now, I'm thrilled with my results from a first attempt at any hattery...

 

[Fedora Jay]

Nice work! I really like how that ribbon turned out.

 

[TheBeak]

Thank you! I appreciate it. I think there is a little too much contrast with the white against the black and blue, but I couldn't find a grey or gold ribbon to use.

I just like that I have something I'll wear from something I would not, and being an Akubra cut from their stiffer more western felt, it is also the most "indestructible" hat I have.

 

[fmw]

Nice job.

 

[Blackthorn]

Looks great, Rich. I wish I had the skills to tackle something like that.

 

[James71]

Thats great mate. I wouldnt wear a snowy river, (tourist hats where Im from), but I would definitely wear it after your makeover. Well done.

 

[Kirk H.]

Looks great, Rich. I wish I had the skills to tackle something like that.

I agree with Blackthorn, that is nice and I wish I had your skills.

Regards

Kirk H.

 

[TheBeak]

Thanks again guys, I'm not sure any of what I did qualified as skill - I basically did a lot of guessing. (but I do work with my hands well in general, and that helped). I had to look up what a brim rounding jack looked like, and promptly decided that such an elegant tool was more than I needed. My crude one worked, but only has one setting for brim width.

I think this was probably more a situation of deciding that it was worth it to me to risk what I paid for the hat to try and get something I would wear out of the deal. Once that decision was made, the hat came apart pretty quickly.

I have since re-creased it to what I saw named a "Maltese Falcon" crease to give it a touch of curvature on top when viewed from the side. Also, I'm still working on the brim, trying to get the brim curve the way I want it by hand with out having to build some sort of tool to help.

It was super lucky that my VS custom hat block came in this week. I bought it just to keep my factory hats in size when they shrink, but it came in really handy on this project holding the size while I fiddled with getting the ribbon tight.

No black hat on Easter for me, so I'll have to wait to put up an in-use pic.

 

[hatophile]

Super job, Beak.