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Dreispitz

One Too Many
Messages
1,164
Yeps said:
My first vintage hat, a Stetson St. Regis, came in today (bought from another member of the lounge, so it may be familiar.)
Photo243.jpg
:eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap Looks great on you! I will wear mine, today!
 

daizawaguy

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,661
Location
Tokyo
Yeps said:
My first vintage hat, a Stetson St. Regis, came in today (bought from another member of the lounge, so it may be familiar.)
Photo243.jpg
Familiar but ORIGINAL! You wear that baby well:eusa_clap
 

Mr. Paladin

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,133
Location
North Texas
Yeps said:
My first vintage hat, a Stetson St. Regis, came in today (bought from another member of the lounge, so it may be familiar.)
Photo243.jpg

Sharp! It does not look the slightest out of place on you. :eusa_clap
 

Dreispitz

One Too Many
Messages
1,164
Another straw hat ... for the summer to come!

Don´t know, if I bothered to post this one after I got it last summer. However, here it is. I fancied the silly idea to take a snow picture of the lid.

Quite a diference in weight, when used to felts. Bhuddah would have certainly favored felt hats over straws. Felts do not involve the flippant concern about frivilous weavecounts and one can keep one´s unfettered peace of mind lol

 

Brad Bowers

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,187
Very nice Derby, but unfortunately, I have no information for you. It might have been one of the many smaller hatters that had disappeared by the Depression. It could also have been a private label.

Brad
 

Mario

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,664
Location
Little Istanbul, Berlin, Germany
Resurrected - Louis Custom Hatters

Ok. So this is my Louis Custom Hatters lid, the one that came in Pandora's hatbox.

Here you have all the sordid details:

Some of you might remember that this was a little risky purchase, as it was tagged 7 1/8, but repeated measurings with different techniques (so to speak) always yielded a smaller hat size, somwhere between 6 7/8 and 7.

When it arrived the first thing that occured to me was that someone must have dunked the hat in stiffener - a lid to give Oddjob a run for his money! It was also too large - more or less a true 7 1/8. Well, well..

I thought it would be a good idea to start with getting a bit of the stiffener out of the hat and so I began to spray it with denatured alcohol (I protected the sweat with a few layers of pastic foil before I started, mind you). Now after some spraying I suddenly noticed to my utter dismay that the ribbon had started to bleed its black dye onto the felt... :eek:

I dissembled the whole hat as fast as I could, put my gloves on, dunked it in Naptha and had a go at it with a brush. After the Naptha I put in another round with some more denatured alcohol, as this was the stuff that got the dye out of the ribbon to start with. After that I let the poor thing dry for a couple of hours. I repeated the whole cycle three times and when I was through and done with it the stains seemed to had largely gone, with the exception of the area where the ribbon had touched the felt, but I believe those stains had been there long before I crashed the hat.

After the hat had dried for the third time I took the next logical step and soaked it in water. Then I linked four cable fixers together (I had figured out how long they would have to be beforehand) and put them over the crown with a spare sweat beneath it to distribute the pressure more evenly. That whole assembly went onto my hatstand to dry. Which it did. When I took the cable fixers off - well, I had to learn that the sweat had kindly shared some of its dye with the hat... :p :rolleyes:

Back to cleaning. This time some of the dye stayed on the felt no matter how hard I tried to get it off. Bye bye, ribbon. Luckily I still had a vintage ribbon from my defunct Dobbs 20 that was broad enough to cover up the markings left by the sweat. So after soaking the hat in water once again, putting it on the hatstand (this time I covered the sweat with layers of plastic foil!), letting it dry and ironing the brim I was finally ready to sew in a new sweatband - for the first time ever... Well, let me just say that I wouldn't want to show you - or anybody else - my needlework, that's for sure. I doesn't look pretty but it holds the sweat in place. And I managed not to bleed onto the off-white felt... Well, after I finished the sweat I proceeded to curse the ribbon into place - again without a major loss of blood.

It is now still a wee bit too large so that I had to put some strips of felt behind the sweat but that's no major deal. The funny thing is that now, after all the denatured alcohol, the felt is so free of any stiffener that I really need to buy another can of the stuff and give the hat a gentle treatment with it... :rolleyes:

Conclusion: I consider the whole thing as a makeshift solution for now. As soon as I have my block ready I'll dissemble the hat again and start over putting it together in a more orderly fashion and - hopefully - in the perfect size.

So. That was that... :eek: :eusa_doh: :rolleyes: :D

Now on to the hat facts:

Crown: 5" (creased)/6" (open)
Brim: 2 5/8" Cavanagh Edge
Ribbon: 2 7/8"

The colour is a very light gray. In fact it is so light that it's almost white. I like that!

I put in a 4-point diamond and think that this is actually a pretty nice hat now... :D

The photo of the sweat is obviously that of the original.

Louis-Custom-Hatters.jpg
 

djgo-cat-go

Practically Family
Messages
905
Location
Netherlands
Mario said:

What a labourious proces, good story man! Too cool! So, you didn't panic once?:rolleyes: lol

The result looks very good, but you're making me very curious about the stitch-work on that sweatband.. Can I seduce you into taking a picture of that and share it :) I'm not so convinced that it looks that bad as you described it, and for that matter, it could be a real stimulus and perhaps encouraging for other members, like me, who contemplate on restoring old hats (I'm not so handy with a needle myself and at this moment I do not dare remove/replace a sweatband)..

Good work, and that lid suits you well.:eusa_clap
 

Aureliano

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,753
Location
Macondo.
:arated:
djgo-cat-go said:
What a labourious proces, good story man! Too cool! So, you didn't panic once?:rolleyes: lol

The result looks very good, but you're making me very curious about the stitch-work on that sweatband.. Can I seduce you into taking a picture of that and share it :) I'm not so convinced that it looks that bad as you described it, and for that matter, it could be a real stimulus and perhaps encouraging for other members, like me, who contemplate on restoring old hats (I'm not so handy with a needle myself and at this moment I do not dare remove/replace a sweatband)..

Good work, and that lid suits you well.:eusa_clap

+1 show us!
 

Yeps

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,456
Location
Philly
So my other new hat, a gambler from Sundbody hats, came in today, and I have mixed feelings. It may just be that it is the dead of winter right now and this is a summer hat, but I am not sure.
Here is a picture of me pretending it is summer.
Photo251.jpg

It is a nice hat, but I am not so sure about it. It seems very country. I did not quite realize how big 3.5 inches is for a brim.
 

Mr. Paladin

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,133
Location
North Texas
Yeps said:
So my other new hat, a gambler from Sundbody hats, came in today, and I have mixed feelings. It may just be that it is the dead of winter right now and this is a summer hat, but I am not sure.
Here is a picture of me pretending it is summer.
Photo251.jpg

It is a nice hat, but I am not so sure about it. It seems very country. I did not quite realize how big 3.5 inches is for a brim.

I think I'd stick with that homburg.....;)
 

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