who invented fur felt

[danofarlington]

Many thanks to the authors of the Winchester fur felt factory piece. So, who among the readership knows how the substance of fur felt was first discovered, stumbled upon, or invented in the first place? What a thing to think of! And who and when made a hat out of the stuff? My sketchy information is that it was a Cro-Magnon man in the Alps named Borsa Lino who first mashed the fur clippings together, but that cannot be confirmed.

 

[Tiller]

http://www.thehatsite.com/felt.html

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Interesting article. But who was the wild man that thought up carroting with mercury? You'd think they woulda used something safer like lead. lol

 

[Blackthorn]

Interesting site, Tiller

 

[danofarlington]

http://www.thehatsite.com/felt.html

Thanks, that's very illuminating. I wonder when all of this was done first and who thought of the processes. However that may be, I'm getting the impression that Borsa Lino was just an urban legend.

 

[Tiller]

Thanks, that's very illuminating. I wonder when all of this was done first and who thought of the processes. However that may be, I'm getting the impression that Borsa Lino was just an urban legend.

Like most thing, I think hat making evolved over time. Process being learned by old fashion trial and error. As they say "We are all dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants."

I do know that Borsa Lino was a good movie though ;-).

 

[Big_e]

I thought I read that some saint, maybe St. Patrick? He noticed that lint-like material collected between his sandals and feet. As he walked along he noted that the lint was flattened by the pressure of his weight and that this material could be made into stuff, like a simple head covering. There comes the first felt hat.
Or was I dreaming that?[huh]
Ernest

 

[Doctor Strange]

I have read this story too - doing research for my junior-high project about hats back in the sixties - but as I recall, it was St. Clement.

 

[bendingoak]

I thought I read that some saint, maybe St. Patrick? He noticed that lint-like material collected between his sandals and feet. As he walked along he noted that the lint was flattened by the pressure of his weight and that this material could be made into stuff, like a simple head covering. There comes the first felt hat.
Or was I dreaming that?[huh]
Ernest

No Sir, you are correct but I don't know if it was St. Patrick.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Actually, a quick Google indicated that I was right - it's traditionally attributed to St. Clement:

http://www.onlinefabricstore.net/cr...ic/felt-cloth-from-the-beginning-article.aspx

http://ezinearticles.com/?Felt-Hats&id=3933755

http://www.mafca.com/downloads/Fashions/History_of_Felt_Hats.pdf

 

[Lefty]

Spend a few dollars and you'll answer almost every question you can think of about felt.

 

[hatted]

There was once an ordinary beaver who disliked the way the rain would sting his eyes as he worked on his dam projects. In a moment of particular despair (it had been raining quite hard for many days), the aggrieved beaver tore out patches of his pelt and...had a eureka moment, as he felt the rain against his skin. Quickly, he set to work on a makeshift hat with a wide brim (from a beaver perspective, stingy by human measure) and set it upon his head.

 

[danofarlington]

There was once an ordinary beaver who disliked the way the rain would sting his eyes as he worked on his dam projects. In a moment of particular despair (it had been raining quite hard for many days), the aggrieved beaver tore out patches of his pelt and...had a eureka moment, as he felt the rain against his skin. Quickly, he set to work on a makeshift hat with a wide brim (from a beaver perspective, stingy by human measure) and set it upon his head.

That's impossible.

Beavers hate wide-brimmed hats.

 

[CRH]

Al Gore invented fur felt before he invented the internet.

 

[bendingoak]

lol lol lol

 

[metropd]

Al Gore invented fur felt before he invented the internet.

I know I shouldn't, but I just had to.
http://www.ontheissues.org/askme/internet.htm
Maybe the progression of fur felt was a similar process.

 

[BanjoMerlin]

I think felt is one of those natural occurances for which people invented applications. Shear a sheep and let the fleece get wet and you end up with a lump of felt. Let a Persian cat get wet and you have a squirming, annoyed lump of felt that you'll probably have to remove by a process not unlike shearing but much more dangerous.

I can just see some industrious caveman sitting there trying to un-lump a lump of wet fur and ending up with a hat. He probably didn't use mercury though.

 

[Sam Craig]

St. Stetson the Pliant of Fedora, Ireland, was fasting and doing penance in the wet, cold Irish countryside when he was befriended by a family of Irish beavers, who had immigrated there to escape the Vikings in the Fifth Century.

The beavers lent St. Stetson and his assistant, Dobbs, handfuls of their warm underfur, to line their sandals.

St. Stetson and Dobbs noticed that, in the wet Irish climate, the soft fur not only kept their feet warm, but it also matted into a solid mass.

One day, Dobbs was tired of standing out in the rain and, it being rather warm, had used his sandal liners to cover his head. They fused together and the rest is ... history.

Who knows how the mercury came in ... something to do with Hugonauts or something.

 

[hatted]

St. Stetson the Pliant of Fedora, Ireland, was fasting and doing penance in the wet, cold Irish countryside when he was befriended by a family of Irish beavers, who had immigrated there to escape the Vikings in the Fifth Century.

The beavers lent St. Stetson and his assistant, Dobbs, handfuls of their warm underfur, to line their sandals.

St. Stetson and Dobbs noticed that, in the wet Irish climate, the soft fur not only kept their feet warm, but it also matted into a solid mass.

One day, Dobbs was tired of standing out in the rain and, it being rather warm, had used his sandal liners to cover his head. They fused together and the rest is ... history.

Who knows how the mercury came in ... something to do with Hugonauts or something.

Beavers in Ireland? Dude!

 

[danofarlington]

Beavers in Ireland? Dude!

I also immediately spotted that one as a lie. Everybody knows that the Vikings chase the Bears, the Lions and the Packers, but never beavers.