Lance Allen
New in Town
- Messages
- 15
- Location
- Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia
I picked up a Stetson Skyhawk that was a little mis-shapened (not sure that’s a word). The brim was outa wack and the crown had lost definition. I wanted to see if I could whip it into shape. I’ve never done this before so I thought I’d share what I did and get any feedback if I missed a step or did something not quite right.
This is a pretty old used hat that needed some love. It’s wasn’t abused but the sweatband is in pretty bad shape. I’m gonna leave it but it might not last much longer.
The brim had snap and the crown wasn’t totally floppy so I decided that it didn’t need any stiffener. I first used a hat brush on it and you could hear the hat say thank you! I then sprayed it with Bickmore dark hat cleaner and used a Bickmore sponge to give it a cleaning.
The liner was barely hanging on and it was rather yucky, so I removed it and used a wet paper towel to clean it. Should I try to re-affix the liner inside the hat or just let it be free in there?
I used a steamer thingy and worked on the brim first (although my game plan was to do it after the crown) and I liberally applied some steam to the areas out of shape and just held it in place with my hands and the table where I thought it should be and that worked. It’s a stingy brim at 1.5” that has an underwelt.
I used steam and opened the crow and then shaped it into a teardrop by applying steam, shaping, steam, shape, etc. I used the brush on it again and my wife said it looked good!
After all that I looked up the Skyhawk online and found one eBay listing and an ad from 1968 for it. Since there are so few listings I’m gonna guess the Skyhawk wasn’t made for very long and with the ad, I’ll go out on a limb and say this hat dates to somewhere around 1968 give or take a few years. It looks like it didn’t have a pinch originally, but I like it with the pinch.
This is a pretty old used hat that needed some love. It’s wasn’t abused but the sweatband is in pretty bad shape. I’m gonna leave it but it might not last much longer.
The brim had snap and the crown wasn’t totally floppy so I decided that it didn’t need any stiffener. I first used a hat brush on it and you could hear the hat say thank you! I then sprayed it with Bickmore dark hat cleaner and used a Bickmore sponge to give it a cleaning.
The liner was barely hanging on and it was rather yucky, so I removed it and used a wet paper towel to clean it. Should I try to re-affix the liner inside the hat or just let it be free in there?
I used a steamer thingy and worked on the brim first (although my game plan was to do it after the crown) and I liberally applied some steam to the areas out of shape and just held it in place with my hands and the table where I thought it should be and that worked. It’s a stingy brim at 1.5” that has an underwelt.
I used steam and opened the crow and then shaped it into a teardrop by applying steam, shaping, steam, shape, etc. I used the brush on it again and my wife said it looked good!
After all that I looked up the Skyhawk online and found one eBay listing and an ad from 1968 for it. Since there are so few listings I’m gonna guess the Skyhawk wasn’t made for very long and with the ad, I’ll go out on a limb and say this hat dates to somewhere around 1968 give or take a few years. It looks like it didn’t have a pinch originally, but I like it with the pinch.
