Dying a fedora

[Dakota Ellison]

I'm considering dying a hat and just wondered if anything new could be added to this thread.
http://www.indygear.com/forum/viewtopic ... highlight=

[Fedora]

Hey Dakota, I got some new techiques that seem to work. First, it is difficult to get the dye to penetrate the core. You can end up with a sandwich hat, the outside will be nice with the new color, but the inside will still be the old color. Of course, you would not know it unless you trim the brim, and there it is. I learned from an old hat book, how to do it right though. Here it is.


You must boil the hat in the dye mixture. I use a big stainess steel pot, that was used to deep fry a turkey. So, it is pretty big. Boiling it once, won't penetrate the core. What the old hatters did was to boil it for 15 minutes, take it out, let it cool completely, and then put it back into the solution. Do this at least 5 times, cooling the hat completely between dye baths. This works. It is a lot of trouble, but the dye will saturate the core, and the color will be real even too. I then just run the hat though the washing machine, warm wash with woolite, followed by a cold rinse. I think you will be pleased with the results. Fedora

[Dakota Ellison]

Thanks, Fedora. You still figure two packs of brown dye and half a pack of yellow for that "Indy brown"? The hat is an old tan fedora.

[Fedora]

Yep, that seemed to work for me. I used quite a bit of water, so I could keep the hat submerged, after I agitated it for awhile. You just want to simmer the hat, barely above the boiling point. You have to have a large enough pot so the dye will not foam and boil over. Oh, I accidently wrote 15 minutes on the above post. I meant 5 minutes. Sorry. So you simmer it for 5 minutes, while stirring, pull it out, let it cool to room temp and repeat 4 or 5 times. The last time, I cut the heat off, weight the hat down so it is submerged and just let it stay in the dye until I get ready to wash it. Fedora