Yeah Dave same felt and ribbon combo. Marc had wanted a vintage khaki, but when I went to that spool, there wasn't enough left for another hat! I bought that roll as a partial roll once upon a time, and apparently used up what little there was of it over the years. But had plenty of this color on the hat above.
For some reason, I really like the caricature block that my current AB was made with.
ANd that is why I kept all of my original blocks.
Actually I have 3 sets of Raiders blocks. The original, the later tweaked ones, and my last one. Wait, make that 4 sets of Raider blocks. I have a set of LLS's as well.
LLS was kind enough to turn my own sized block into what he came up with, and I bought a set of blanks and made a complete set in his work. So, I figure one of these will please most everyone.
I will probably end up with 5 sets eventually.
LLS is working on tweaking his own set as we speak, and if I see something l like better....I am not too proud to copy what I see on his! But, credit is always given when I do copy. I always give credit where credit is due.
Way back I started from scratch, when I tried to replicate the Raiders fedora blockshape. And this is a great way to get into Indy hats IMO. You learn so much about blocks, and what a different radius will do, or not do. And where the breaking points count, etc. And seldom do guys that start like this keep their status quo. We are always changing something, although I ran out of energy in the last couple of years to do any tweaks. But LLS is carrying the torch, he is younger, more energetic.
And still has that compulsive passion to take this farther. Neither one of us was ever totally satisfied with what we had done. But I think we see things others don't see. And it bothers us.
At one time, early on, I really thought I had this blockshape nailed. The years and the scutiny of the film hat tells me differently.
To date, I don't think a single soul has really nailed that blockshape. Close? Sure, but some of us are after complete perfection, and are hindered by only being able to see this hat on film. If I had a real deal pristine Raiders fedora from the film, I could replicte it perfectly. But, I don't have that, none do. And this is a huge variable! Huge. LLS basically is trying to replicate a vintage HJ that I used to own, that looked closer to what we see on film than any other HJ we have seen. When he made his first block, he "assumed" some changes had occured in this blockshape over time, and added those back. He is now taking those changes out, and is replicating exactly what that HJ had in blockshape, and from his call this week, he seems pretty elated about his new efforts. I am waiting patiently for his next new post here in which he will unveil his new work. And if I like what I see, as I said, I have no qualms about copying.
If I ever get the time, which looks doubtful. He took all sorts of pics of that hat, even in the silhoutte, shadows. And I still have pics of it somewhere on a cd. We both feel this was the correct block used. He did from the get go, but I was somewhat hesitant, only because of the habit of old hats to lose some of the original blockshape over time. I have since changed my mind on that issue though. Some do, and some don't.
What really drove this home to me was the Raiders fedora, I posted above. The brown rain hat of mine. Hats, in my experience, once blocked with a particular blockshape, seem to always remember the original block used. No joke. So, when I reblocked the above hat last year, on the newest Raiders block, coming off the block it looked right. But, as the months passed, it is morphing back into the original blockshape used!
Or worse, a combination of the first block and the last. Now, I really instill the blockshape into all of my hats. That is why it takes me so long to make just one, from start to finish. I use alot of water and heat, etc to do this. On the other hand, one can take a new HJ or Christy, and that original blockshape is not remembered very well by the felt. Probably because the way they are blocked, very fast. So, I can put a new blockshape into these, and it stays. My block job becomes what the hat remembers. And I know this is due to the way that me, John, Marc and LLS block our own line of hats. But this can hinder in changing a hat from its original blockshape. When I turn a Raiders fedora into a CS, or vice versa, as the months go by, the hat starts to revert to the original blockshape, some more than others. So there is a down side to changing a block shape on an AB, or an LLS, or John's. Seldom does it seem to last! Especially if you are changing the shape in a big way, like from a CS to a Raiders, or vice versa. In this scenerio a change from a CS to a Raiders will tend to take on the new shape better, over time, because the Raiders block is not a full as the CS. So, it shrinks down, to its new shape and the shrinkage aids it in not returning to a fuller crown. But a Raiders to a CS, in my experience, won't last. Because the felt was shrunk originally to the Raiders block, which is not as full. SO, when you stretch that out, to the CS, it tends to want to shrink back to the Raiders. Bored?
Fedora
Is there a forum about this? I realise that this isn't the place to discuss it. 
