Home-made Hats

[Swing Motorman]

Hello all,

I'm wondering if anyone else has made their own hat, particularly if you used materials not normally associated with hats.

Two months into my trolley museum volunteering, I decided I needed a cap. I could get one for around $100 (and a lot of waiting), or I could try to make my own. I had never attempted this, but being the fixit/tinkerer that I am, I resolved to try, and took a shopping excursion to my college bookstore.

I built my cap using just a few materials:
-a plastic folder
-a canvas athletic bag
-a baseball cap
-two museum fare tokens
-one museum pill case
-a gold paint pen
-artist's matte medium
-pushpins
-paperclips

Here's the result.

The inside, showing the plastic folder frame with stripped-down pushpin fasteners. The band and brim are reshaped and re-used from the baseball cap.

A closeup of the side buttons, incorporating experimental museum fare tokens from years ago. The tokens are soldered to paperclips, which are stuck through the hat band. The trolley is a Chicago, Aurora & Elgin commuter car. The hat fabric is the canvas bag cut into strips, fastened, and coated liberally with matte medium.

The hat badge is a wood-top pill case, painted gold and super-glued to a loop of rope. Both the rope behind the badge and the decorative rope across the brim are the drawstrings from the athletic bag, which also donated the canvas covering.

The badge shows a Brazilian open-air trolley. You can also see the hat in use in the vehicles thread linked to above.

Amazingly, this hat has held up for a year and a half with no need for repair and no major wear. It has served through rain:rain:, snow:smow:, and summer heat:flame:. I can even grab it by the brim and swing it to bat bees out of the trolleys. You can bet I check the inside VERY well before putting it back on my head!!

My favorite experience with this hat was swing dancing in it. I raced back to college from the museum to make it to a live band swing dance, and I had no time to change. So when the band struck up "Chattanooga Choo-Choo," there was an actual electric railway operator on the floor in uniform. Not easy to dance fast in a hat, but it was so worth it that time.

So, any other home-built hats out there? Please share!

 

[fmw]

Nice job. Ingenious, really. Great to see young people engaging in live band swing.

 

[scottyrocks]

Nice job. Can we see it on your head?

 

[Swing Motorman]

Thanks guys! I don't have many good on-head shots, but here are two I found.

Getting home from a long "workday":

At the controls of Baltimore United Railways no. 6119:

 

[DRB]

Outstanding. Great job with the materials you had to work with. The perfect style. Have you ever thought about making a fur felt hat? With your creativity, you might do well.

 

[scottyrocks]

Very cool, swing. You look like a natural.

 

[Swing Motorman]

Thank you very much, fellas. I've always seen my cap as a rather humble effort, and I'm amazed that it's still intact. While visiting the Baltimore Streetcar Museum, someone commented that my cap looked very old-fashioned, so I figured it was worth sharing here.

And DRB, I'm not sure where to begin on a homemade felt hat. I am beginning to take apart a thrift store basket case of a fedora, hoping to rebuild it to wearable condition. We'll see, maybe [re-]building hats yourself won't turn out to be so hard after all.

 

[Sam Craig]

What a great job!

When I first got involved in Living History in the early '80s, the only way you could get much in the way of civilian clothes was to have them custom made. You can imagine the cost.
I began making or customizing most of my clothes and gear. It's amazing what you can figure out how to do if you really HAVE to. ... or really WANT to but can't afford it.

I even hand sewed a carpet bag one time. I used it for years and still have it, even though I'm out of the avocation.

You did a great job.

Sam

 

[4spurs]

Looks like a serious case of A Streetcar Hat Desired . . . . Great job.

 

[Swing Motorman]

Thrift Store Mess Fixed!

I mentioned a disaster of a hat that I got from a thrift shop and was working on repairing. Well, it's complete enough to wear, although it needs a stretch and something more permanent than poster putty to hold the sweatband in! :eusa_doh:

I got this from a thrift shop in Huntingdon, PA, out of the bottom of a bin of hats. The "ribbon" (really just more sewn-on cloth), was brown with sweat damage, and the cloth sweatband was shedding black flakes! It was not getting on my head in that shape, plus it was much too small.

So, I took it apart to look like this, adding a few supplies:

The black coils are ribbon from a party store in town, and faux leather band from a JoAnn Fabrics store.

Sewing the crown to the leather band:

Something's missing here...

The brim is [VERY carefully] pinned on and ready to sew:

Complete hat, with ribbon, separate bow, and its original feather cleaned up and reattached!

The inside, showing the slightly marked liner.

I like how this turned out. It's my first gray hat, and it taught me a lot about hat repairs. For on-head shots, see here. Hope you enjoyed the show! If you have home hat repair projects or whole hat builds, please share.

 

[fmw]

A budding hatter to be sure. Great job.

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

Great job

 

[bowlerman]

super impressive! nice work.

 

[Ordinary Guy]

Great job. I admire your skills and abilities....

Also the linked pics of trench coat and suit are perfect.....

Well done.....

 

[DRB]

A job well done. Congratulations.

 

[Doomstein]

I'm making a panama hat. I blocked it using a 6" tall #52 block, and so far so good. I may have to use a thick 2" ribbon on it because of the cheap hat body's obvious crown to brim weave transition.

 

[Doomstein]

So at first I took the 6" open crown and creased it to 4 1/2" and used a mild flange on the 3" brim...



But then I thought that was a little boring, so I bumped the crown crease up to 5" and used a much more dramatic brim flange.



I didn't realize I was out of 2" ribbon, which is a shame. This hat could really use it. I had to use 1.5" instead.

I have no idea where to source cotton/rayon 2", if there even is such a place.

Anyhoo, I really dig the tall, straight sided crown, and the big brim. This hat will be perfect for the Florida summer this year.

 

[Fireman772]

These are all accomplishments of talent and ingenuity, but that Railroad Uniform hat is A-MAZ-ING!

 

[LuvMyMan]

Thanks guys! I don't have many good on-head shots, but here are two I found.

Getting home from a long "workday":

At the controls of Baltimore United Railways no. 6119:

Not too many individuals would even imagine making a hat as you have and even out of such common items for the major part of the hat itself. Talent . I tend to think if you decided to make a "sculpture" artwork using some of the similar materials of a "motor car" itself, how well you could do something in a small size as to scale, but dead on accurate.

 

[LuvMyMan]

So at first I took the 6" open crown and creased it to 4 1/2" and used a mild flange on the 3" brim...

View attachment 14359

But then I thought that was a little boring, so I bumped the crown crease up to 5" and used a much more dramatic brim flange.

View attachment 14364

I didn't realize I was out of 2" ribbon, which is a shame. This hat could really use it. I had to use 1.5" instead.

I have no idea where to source cotton/rayon 2", if there even is such a place.

Anyhoo, I really dig the tall, straight sided crown, and the big brim. This hat will be perfect for the Florida summer this year.

You do know, having a nice no-taper Panama Hat, is fairly rare and so very "drooled" over to own. Yours is just flat out fantastic looking. Where did you obtain the hat itself? Smart move to block it into an open crown and then work on making it have the Fedora Style you have given it.