PS- I’m sensing that you are getting a “sour grapes” vibe off of me, otherwise you wouldn’t have posted all that “in the end I was the guy chosen for Indy 4” business. I assure you I could really give a ####. I don’t have any stake in this whatsoever. I haven't bought a fedora in years.
PPS- I'm thinking about sending you a Montecristie for a reblock. Also I might send you a felt hat for a welted edge. Do you think you can help me out? "Master Hatter" doesn't mean much these days anyway, right
Sour grapes? Actually, I am not, although I can see how you might think so. But to set the record straight, no hard feelings at all Rundquist! You and I have always had lively debates, and neither of us has changed! We can be civil, and disagree. That makes all of this very interesting to me.
On the PPS, I have a Montecristi for Magnoli that I am going to turn into a hat, as soon as I can get time. I have done a couple, and really, they are much easier than felt hats to block. Felt is much more labor intensive.
On the welted edge, yeah, I can do those, but choose not to do so. I don't need that business. If I needed it, I would certainly do it though. I would have to find and invest in the plates used for welted edges though. I can also do bound edges, it ain't rocket science to do so, but I don't fancy hand sewing the ribbon, as I hate machinery. But again, if I needed that business, I would certainly branch out. So far, I have been very fortunate to have such a huge market for the raw edged Indy hat. It leaves me no time for the other stuff.
The Master Hatter term is mostly hype today. Ask any well known hatter who did not train under one!! One of the hatters who was my competition trained under a well known master hatter, and we beat him! So much for master hatters is all I can say. ;-) Now, don't take this as me bragging. I am a pretty humble guy, most days. And I have no delusions of being better than Art, Marc, or any number of handmade hatters out there. In fact, I consider myself only passable in the hatmaking deal. I never claimed to be the best at doing anything. I do think I have a decent eye for an Indy fedora, but I am not alone in that department here, on COW. So nothing special about me. But I was lucky is all I can say.
A true Master Hatter would be able to take a rodent pelt, and turn it into any number of hats. The term has been watered down, over the centuries to reflect what it is today. It is almost laughable, as this term is bantered about way too much. It doesn't mean much today in the world of hatmaking gadgetry....and I am being realistic here. Hatters today are basically machine operators, at best, and more than likely stay in their offices as hourly workers generate the Master Hatter's hats. That's a fact. With a few exceptions of course. There are always exceptions.
It would have been nice if we would have had a supplier for the Raiders type felt, and could have used that in the film. But, I have owned an HJ in that same felt, (wrong color) and I can safely say that this sort of felt is not being made today, at least from the 7 existing feltmakers in the world. The current HJ felt I get is too soft and thin and certainly would not hold up in looks. It would have put Bernie into the mental ward. He was distressed about the creases popping out in the action scenes as it was! But, you also did not try to mess with Harrison's hat during these sequences. You would have pulled back a nub!
The only complaint I heard were the days Bernie was not on set. His standin did not do such a good job in keeping the hat styled the same.
On the height of the hat.....well, the HJs Bernie had from some of the prior films were the same crown height.....so, I am not sure what you mean. If you extend the ribbon width up on the pics I posted above of the Raiders fedora(before it shrunk) you will see the height is basically the same as we made. Remember, they picked the height, or Steven did. After being filmed in the wardrobe test. We were just giving them what was requested of us. The TOD and LC hats were a bit shorter, I will give you that. Even when new. And they certainly were stiffer hats than the Raiders fedoras. By the way, over the years I have reblocked older HJs that varied in crown height. From 5 inches up to 6. No consistency over the years in block, height, or color for that matter. It has been snake surprise in regards to them. But, we know for a fact the dimesions on the hats Bernie had in hand, and they were the same height as what we made, but had a 2 7/8 by 2 5/8 brim. But, it is obvious that some of the hats from the other 3 films varied in brim width and even crown height. No surprise here, to me.
In the end, we gave those guys what they wanted. We did pull a fast one and sent only the straighter sided blocks in, to choose from.
Yeah, we did have an agenda, and were running the risk of losing the contract by doing what we did. We could have sent in 4 or 5 different blockshapes and let them choose, but we were afraid to do so!! Afraid they might pick the TOD block.
Now, I am way, way off topic as Bink has said, but I wanted to write a bit more on this subject.
Regarding Lee's new hat, I think he has a winner. And, I am glad Lee went with the same felt that I use. I know this felt really well. And, I would not pick any other over it. If a guy wants a hat as soft as beaver can be, I will soak the raw body in denatured alcohol for a week and leech out the shellac. I can do this, while the factories cannot do so, and still make money. I have done so in the past, and actually made one hat like this for the film. It is the one hanging off the crate, from the early PR pics. Used as a prop only. That hat would have driven Bernie nuts, putting the creases back in. Bernie approached the costume with the "form follows function" attitude. A pragmatist no doubt.
I had sent Lee's factory a block to try and copy for Lee's new hats, last year. Us Indy hat guys sorta stick together, behind the scenes. I helped out Ron at Hatsdirect as well. And Ken at Camptown. Marc and I certainly are not trying to be the only Indy hatters. But, I only offer help to members here. I am faithful to this crew. It would be a wise business decison NOT to do so, but honestly, this is still a great hobby to me, although I certainly make good money with my new site price. But at heart, I am still just an avid Indy fan and get my jollies from making these hats. I am the happiest when I am in the shop making hats. I am the unhappiest when my inbox has more emails than I have time to answer. But, that will change with time. And, I look forward to it.
One thing is for certain. We have such a huge and varied offering of Indy fedoras these days! And to me, that is as good as it gets. Several fan based hatters and retailers have emerged over the years. And, you have to admit that we did not have these choices way back when you and I were members of Indyfan.com. I still have those photos you posted way back on COW(I think) showing the comparion of one Indy fedora to a hat or two that you had. This was in regards to crown height. This was back when we were all(most of us) thinking the Indy fedora was taller than it actually was. We were all wearing 5 3/4 crowned hats back then. Once I started making hats, and seeing pics of them on folks here, I noticed right away I was making them to tall, at 5 3/4 open crown. I dropped down to 5 1/2 fairly fast. But, with this said, sometimes the hat does have to be taller to compensate for head size. But for most folks, the 5 1/4 to 5 1/2 seems to work out pretty good.
One last detail regarding the CS fedora. This hat to me, looks better if you drop the back down to 4, and the front to 4 1/2. Instead of the 4 1/4, and 4 3/4 height respectively. The way the block is shaped allows the hat to be actually a bit shorter looking when you use the lower creases. And, it defines the top crease much better, as some of the film hats look to be too shallow on the top.
To be honest, although your hat does look more like the Raiders hat at least superficially, it just doesn't move like the Raiders hat. It seemed like a hat better suited for "Oddjob" in Goldfinger
Yeah, I agree, that it does look Raider-esque, superficially. The felt is obviously way, way different. And, to date, I have not seen any felt, other than the vintage HJ mentioned above that is exactly like the rabbit felt in Raiders. And, the hat Oddjob wore was stiff enough to stand on, like the old stiff bowlers and derbies of yesteryear. You embellished that statement just a bit.
Most of the hats we sent were actually fairly soft, as you can see in the film, in certain shots. Not in the same category as the Raiders fedora, but probably no more stiffer than some of the LC fedoras. But the felt is certanly expoentially denser than any of the other film hats. You can take one of these bodies and fill the crown with water and it will take a couple of hours before the hat will leak out the first drop of water. So yeah, the denseness keeps the noggin drier than rabbit. When John at Montana Hatters did this test, he used a vintage rabbit, and a lightweight body in pure beaver. The rabbit leaked in less than 15 minutes. Now, he was only testing to see which felt would keep a guy's head dry in a frog strangler. Nothing will beat out pure beaver in such a test. And, only one of the reasons we think pure beaver to be the only way to go, for an actual non costume hat. It may not rain in Southern California, but down here in the South, we get our share of rain. And I wear these pure beaver hats year round. We get lots of heat and humidity. I once bought a high dollar tight weave Montecristi, and honestly, that hat was as hot as my pure beaver felt hat. I was totally shocked. That tight weave you pay the big bucks for is extremly hot for such a light hat! And please don't get that baby wet!!
Fedora
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