How do I create a teardrop or similar shape?

[Naphtali]

I have an unbashed fedora. Rather than bash with a single front-to-rear slot and pinch front -- similar to Akubra Federation aka "Indiana Jones Personal Model," I want to have something akin to a teardrop with moderate pinch front.

How do I achieve this? Please describe the procedure I must do, step by step. I have no hatt block for this bash, so I'll be doing it freehand, or via improvization.

 

[Raindog]

I've just converted my tear drop to centre dent! However I did the tear drop myself too.
I simply sprayed the top of the hat with cold water, placed my left hand at the front of the hat and pinched it together to form the familiar shape, at the same time I used my right hand fingers to shape the circle at the back, pinching the back to form a tightish rim. Then placed on my head and pressed the hat down so my head pushed the top of the hat outwards, took off the hat and made sure everything looked good, and placed it somewhere to dry.
Most of the work was done with the initial pinch at the front and forming the 'bowl' at the back. It just sort of forms itself pretty much.
Hope this helps in some way Naphtali,

Jeff.

 

[DanielJones]

Naphtali: I did this with a Peters Bros. Straw and it seemed to work quite well, I imagine that this method will work on fur felt as well. Now, I know some folks here will cringe and thrash about speaking in toungues at this but I use steam. Not too much mind you. Just enough to warm up and slightly soften the felt or straw.
Then with that I start out with punching down the crown until the edges are at the height that you desire. Lets say 4" in the back and 5" in the front for that nice slope, just for the sake of this minor tutorial. Individual tastes will apply at this time.
Once that is accomplished it's time to put in the front pinch. Personally I like a tight front pinch, but that't just me. You can do this part dry and then apply a little steam to set it once you are satisfied with your results. Start with the side dents using your fingers. You can view some of the methods of this over at COW, There are many tutorials covering this, some of the best ones I've seen were done by prairiejones. Now that the pinch is done apply a little steam to the punched down crown area and start to push up the center area to create the dome that will conform to your noggin. This part takes a little while and eventually you have your tear drop in your crown.
This was the simplest method that I had come up with and I'm quite sure that there are folks here that have their tried & true methods for the tear drop. Mine is just one of many. I hope that this gives you a good starting point and you find the method that will work for you. Here are some photos of my straw.

The top image is in the middle stages and hadn't been refined yet with the tighter pinch, or the dome in the middle being pushed up high enough. This straw started out with a 6" open crown. I hope that these help.
Happy hat shaping and Happy New Year!

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Raindog]

Where'd you get such a great looking straw Daniel?


Jeff.

 

[Andykev]

It's in the hands

Wow. Good job on the straw, as that is much harder to work with.

On the felt, if you have "bashed" it to an "open crown", then just hand shape it whichever way you want. When you achieve the look you want, then just apply a bit of kettle steam and voila' !! A perfect fit!

 

[DanielJones]

Raindog: It's Peters Bros. Indy Straw. It was way too tall with the Indy center dent. Made it look like an Abe Lincoln stove pipe on me so I reshaped it into what you see.
At the botom of this page you see the Indy Straw.
http://www.petersbros.com/INDY_CUSTOM/Default.htm
Now the hat is pretty nice but their customer service is quite lacking. You'll be lucky to see the hat in about 6 weeks even though it only takes 3 weeks to process the order. It took me bugging them several times before they sent it out. But it sure makes a fine summer hat letting the breeze pass through and keep your noggin cool. Soft and supple but holds the shape you put it in. I like it very much. Maybe their customer service has improved since earlier this year when I bought it. I had heard that their organization was going through some tough times, so maybe by now things have settled into a nice groove.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[DanielJones]

Wow. Good job on the straw, as that is much harder to work with.

On the felt, if you have "bashed" it to an "open crown", then just hand shape it whichever way you want. When you achieve the look you want, then just apply a bit of kettle steam and voila' !! A perfect fit!

Andykev: Thank you very much!
Actually the straw was quite easy to shape. It's fairly soft & coated with a varnish to hold it's shape. Once a little steam hits it the varnish softens and then will stiffen once it cools. Some of the stiffer felt hats like the Fed take a little more finessing but generally the shaping of a hat is pretty darn easy. When I first shaped a hat I thought it was going to be tough. Go figure.

Naphtali: This area of The Golden Era has some great photos for reference for the shaping of hats.
http://www.thegoldenera.net/Hats.html

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Biltmore Bob]

If it's dress weight felt...what Andy said. Heavier felt like a Western Hat...I use the watering trough method. I get the felt saturated, shake off the excess, make a round crease like a bowl in the crown, dent the pinch as tight as I want it...then wear it dry...

Works for me.

 

[DanielJones]

BB: Yes, that method works quite well too. I've used that for a couple of cowboy hats that I had to reshape. Those things were quite stubborn until soaked.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Naphtali]

The hat was a gift -- and boy oh boy do I owe big time. It's a NOS Borsalino fedora, 2-5/8 inch brim, 5 inch open crown. I find no model designation, just the letters ABH, all caps, punched out in the sweatband. The H is slightly offset from AB. The color is either charcoal gray or dark taupe. This is the hat about which I queried how to secure the elasticized retaining button.

If there were a hatter within driving distance, I wouldn't futz around. But the closest hatter in Hamilton, MT, does Western stuff. I've not seen any of his work either.

My Borsalino Traveller will be on its way to a new home as soon as someone wants it, and I suspect the Federation will go, also.

All I must do is find a second hat like this, taupe or chocolate brown and I'm done.

 

[Biltmore Bob]

Oughta be able to shape that sucker by hand without any steam at all.

 

[DanielJones]

Bob's right. It should be soft enough to push it into any shape you desire. The steam would only be used to set the shape you place.
What a nice gift you got. Enjoy your new lid.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Michael Mallory]

I bought a wonderful braided raffia fedora in Hawaii, and had no alternative but to put it in the suitcase to get it back home. I stuffed the interior with socks in hopes it would survive. It didn't. It looked like the cake someone left out in the rain from "MacArthur Park." So I put my teakettle on and softened up the crown, and then reblocked it into a teardrop shape using a combination of the newell post of my staircase and a styrofoam wig-stand. The only down-side was that my repeated race from the teakettle to the newell post scared my dog.

 

[Naphtali]

The job is sufficiently close to complete to wear, then do a final touch-up.
***
Rather than work from the pinch front as was suggested, I made a rough center bash -- amend that to VERY ROUGH center bash. Then I used a spectacle mister-cleaner filled with distilled water to mist where I would massage the felt.

I rested the hat in my lap and used my thumbs to gently shape the rounded rear of the teardrop. The crown began forming itself into the teardrop as I gradually massaged toward the front.

After pinching the front, I went to work on the center crown-plus-rim. I put one finger inside the hat, using the other hand's thumb to control the ridge or rim of the teardrop. What I was doing was to reduce the severity of the teardrop's crease as I rounded the center bash's crown. After completing this reasonably well, I then reduced the severity of the pinch front.

Rough completion took no more than twenty minutes. I then went over the job, touching up and correcting minor errors. The hat was put on my hat platform to dry.
***
What surprised me most was the crown helping form itself into the teardrop.

What I had been fearful of -- scuffing the felt or rendering it unevenly thick because of being ham-handed -- didn't happen. I think the reasons for this are the density of the hat's felt, and its thinness. Thinness and density are facets of a whole. Apparently dense thin felt allows for ease of shaping the felt.