Wolfbrae Custom Hatters

[belfastboy]

I have a weakness for the Gambler style. Love that full somewhat Boss of the Plains crown. I pulled this old Resistol western hat out of my discards bin. A decent felt worthy of a rework. Size 59cm and likely off to Ebay

 

[tamz0r]

Here is the third hat of the week from the same client. He had his Ebay purchases sent directly to me for an assessment and cleanup. This hat required very little, just a good brushing, some steam and a bit of touch up on the creasing. Client now has three fine Stetsons to add to his collection. Not a bad week's worth of hat hunting.

These are my hats! Thank you Robert for breathing new life into these vintage hats.

Just wanted everyone to know that Robert was very generous with his time and talent in not only restoring these hats, but also in describing to me how I might go about cleaning up vintage hats for myself in the future (though admittedly I doubt I could do nearly as good a job.)

cheers!

 

[belfastboy]

I shipped a hat to a very good customer. It was a "festival style" hat the client wanted to wear at a local summer Blues Fest. He sent it back to me after a while with a request for me to remake the hat, deciding the festival look was just not for him. Here are the before and after pics of the hat. I tore the hat down except for the brim binding. The crown was raised a bit but I blocked it on the same #51 block. The taper on the #51 would not get me the big boxy crown the client prefers but i softened the hard lines of the original creasing. Also the brim was flanged with a slight degree of cupping. Lastly I swapped out the shark's gill for a traditional bow work.

It has a more definite fedora vibe with the wide brim lending a slight western feel to it. First two are the original festival hat, the second two the 'new' look.

 

[belfastboy]

It has been a productive week. Here are 3 hats picked up on Friday by my best lady client.
First hat is a dark grey, Winchester rabbit, open crown just under 5", brim at 3 1/2". Brim is turned down at the front and back, flat on the sides. All 3 hats are trimmed with vintage silk blend grosgrain that was silly expensive. But I wanted to top the hats off with something special. I think it worth the expense.

Second hat is an Usst felt (Ukraine) in black rabbit. Same crown, but sports a dimensional brim 4 1/2" at the front 3 3/4" at the back.

Last is a Grade 2 Panama. Same open crown but with a massive 5" brim turned down in a bell shape all round. My version of a Holly Golightly hat.

 

[belfastboy]

An aspect of custom hatting that I absolutely love and that is the collaborative process with clients. Spent the morning working with a lady client helping her design her hats for this autumn. She supplies the ideas, while I supply the crafting knowledge of how to do, can we do it, and /or do we want to do it.
First is a Winchester 100% beaver felt with an enormouns 8" stove pipe crown, we will likely cut the brim to a stingy. Felt is unpounced and we are considering working the felt to raise the nap even more, looking for a modified 'grizzly' finish.

Second is a FEPSA 120gram rabbit felt in TerraCotta. A very orange felt. Not a colour for everyone but on my client it just popped. We pushed the crown to 6 1/2" open....should get a 2 3/4" brim. Still working on the style but likely we will leave the crown open.

For both hats, the trimming is TBD. We shall see what the felts are calling out in terms of the trimming.