Stretching question

[punkinhed]

I'm thinking about doing a bit of stretching with a long-oval stretcher. My concern is that stretching the base of the crown will cause buckling of the brim. Does that make sense? If that's the case, any suggestions on avoiding the problem? Will I just need to stretch the hat and try to reshape the brim?

 

[warbird]

Give some detail on the hat; make, model, brim width, crown height, material used etc.

 

[GentlemanFarmer]

Patience

If you're only going up 1 hat size (ex. - 7 1/4 up to 7 3/8) you may get away without the warping of the brim or crown. Take your time and use plenty of steam and a light touch of Lexol to the sweatband.

 

[bolthead]

Also....

You should be more aware and careful not to split the sweatband. You're going to be concentrating on the brim & forgetting the sweat. I've already done it. :eusa_doh:

 

[J.T.Marcus]

The most likely problem will be a split sweatband. It has happened to most of us who have used a hat stretcher. To minimize the probability of that, you might want to clip the seam in back and a few stitches on each side of the seam. This will allow room to stretch, but not more than about one size. To go more, you will want to remove the hatband (or ribbon), the liner, and the sweatband. Then soak the hat body for about an hour. Shape it the way you want, then put the stretcher in and guess how much you want to enlarge it. Let it dry for two days, then sew everything back together. Good luck...

 

[cookie]

Open Road

So no real problem for stretching one up a size from say 59 to 60? 22 to 23 inches or is this a bridge too far?

 

[EricH]

I've had good luck stretching up a size on a regular basis which is .5 to .75 inches or roughly 1.2 to 2 cm for the metric crowd. Any more and it is time to see your hatter. The first problem is always the sweatband splitting. I am fortunate enough to have found a 4 way stretcher that expands in all directions. This helps to evenly stretch the leather and seems to do a better job maintaining the shape of the crown. I stretch, remove tension briefly, and repeat the process multiple times to insure that I am not concentrating the tension on one part of the band.

The overlooked problem is often the ribbon. You may or may not need to remove or loosen the ribbon. I always find my best results are with thin ribbon hats.

Having a block(s) in my size helps me reshape the crown after stretching and smooth out any dicontinuities.

I have a custom device I use for my hats that is profiled to my head shape that goes in to every stretched hat a a final step. It insures that the hat will not shrink back and over time makes all my hats fit almost as good as the ones from Mr. Fawcett.

Eric
A 7 3/8 head living in a 7 1/4 past

 

[J.T.Marcus]

7 1/8 to 7 1/4 is workable. 22" to 23" is a stretch best not even contemplated! But, if you don't have much invested in the hat, you can afford to experiment. Have fun.

 

[reetpleat]

I'm thinking about doing a bit of stretching with a long-oval stretcher. My concern is that stretching the base of the crown will cause buckling of the brim. Does that make sense? If that's the case, any suggestions on avoiding the problem? Will I just need to stretch the hat and try to reshape the brim?

I can only d this to the discussion. I have stretched hats long ago, and they always seemed to mess up the brim a little. It never looked or flipped right.

However, I have, on a couple of old hats, wet and ironed the brim, don't ask me why, i don't remember exactly, but it flattened the brim so it had no flip and looked awful. So I wet the brims lightly, not soaked, just water poured on them a little and rubbed in to wet it, and left the hats upright on a table with the brims flipped up. they dried perfectly and regained their curve.

I do not know how it would affect a hat that was streteched. I am not sure why the hats shriunk back into their original shape brimwise.

But this bit of knowledge may be helpful at some point in the process.