Hat making?? Learning Millinery..

[TWKundrat]

Yes, Drew places factory orders a few times a year. Minimum is 12 pieces per colour. Ask him if he still does that and ask to be contacted when he is about to place an order.

Ok thanks for the info. I would definitely be interested in those in the future. Might need to find someone who wants to split an order since I don't do much quantity.

 

[T Jones]

I suggest you sew the brim first, struggle through it and then post your results. Then we can give you feedback on your work. I for one would never attempt to sew a brim binding by hand. I don't have that level of patience. Even sewing by machine it takes upwards of 90 minutes. Hand sewing perhaps double that. Will your customers be willing to pay that much of an upcharge for that amount of labour?

I sew all of my brim bindings by hand. Like Robert said, it takes a good level of patience and it's slow and back breaking work. Magnifying hobby glasses really help, and you have more control over where you put your stitches. With that said, I do have a nice sewing machine and if I was better at using one I would switch out the hand sewing for the machine.

 

[belfastboy]

Ok thanks for the info. I would definitely be interested in those in the future. Might need to find someone who wants to split an order since I don't do much quantity.

These are light weight 120gr dress felts so it might not work for your clientele.

 

[TWKundrat]

These are light weight 120gr dress felts so it might not work for your clientele.

Yes sir. I am mostly interested in western hats but I would like to get my hands on some light weight felts for some fedoras.

 

[belfastboy]

Yes sir. I am mostly interested in western hats but I would like to get my hands on some light weight felts for some fedoras.

The FEPSA 120gr Rabbit felts are nice to work with and make for a nice vintage feel hat. Good colour selection as well.

 

[Darrell2688]

The FEPSA 120G Rabbit and the 95G Beaver are nice to work with , the beaver has a soft silky feel and the hat is so comfortable to wear, you will forget that you are wearing a hat. I have a FEPSA Beaver in the Brown Sugar color with a dark brown hat band, Indiana Jones Raiders Style in size 7 3/8" on Ebay for sale and I may just keep the hat for myself then sell a Indy Raiders Style hat in chocolate color rabbit in 7 3/8" that I have not posted for sale yet. I purchased my rabbit and beaver from Pure Beaver after Robert told me about Pure Beaver, they also have Western weight felts in stock.

 

[TWKundrat]

Just finished putting together and testing out my prototype crown iron. It does what it's supposed to do so I'm happy.

 

[belfastboy]

Just finished putting together and testing out my prototype crown iron. It does what it's supposed to do so I'm happy.

View attachment 641244

If I understand its operation....you need to stand there, hold and direct the iron? It is not automated? What do you see is the advantage to this over hand pouncing/ironing? Is it the time factor alone?

 

[TWKundrat]

You are correct, this is a manual iron without automatic feed. It's definitely not a new idea. There were manual crown irons back in the day you just don't see too many surviving examples. The biggest advantage I see in this setup over hand pouncing and ironing is just speed and consistency. Obviously a fine job can also be done by hand by someone who knows what they're doing. This is just another tool that some people prefer.

One way to think of it if you compare this to woodworking is a hand molding plane versus a router versus an industrial wood shaper with power feed to make molding. The hand molding plane would compare to hand ironing and pouncing, the router would compare to my manual iron, and the power feed industrial wood shaper would compare to the full automatic crown iron. The same result can be had from all three methods but it's basically just a matter of skill level, speed required and preference. Always more than one way to skin a cat!

 

[Darrell2688]

How fast does the hat block and felt spin? Pouncing by hand with a spinning blocked felt would make the pouncing work a little faster.