Dyeing a hat

[antiquity collector]

I just picked up a hat and was curious about how you would go about dyeing it. Anybody have any suggestions?

It's an old army stetson. I think Fedora had bid on this at one point and then passed or forgot about it as someone else had outbid him.

It's a cool hat as is, but had thought about altering it. Maybe reblocking it as well. Probably needs a cleaning too.

Rob

[Fedora]

Was that the Stetson No. 1 Quality hat? My plans for it included cleaning, redyeing and reblocking. Now that I think about it, I was gonna just rebuild the hat adding a new sweat ribbon and liner. I have dyed two hats with outstanding results. Rit dye, brown and yellow mixture, but you could use red instead of yellow if you wanted red highlights. The key is to have a container large enough to submerge the hat completely, weighting it down, and for the container to be large enough for the hat to completey spread out. No folds in the felt or you will have a lighter streak. You also must have the hat clean. I just throw it in the washer, warm water wash, cold rinse and use Woolite. Once you get the hat clean and put it in the dye bath, you must agitate it for as long as you can stand it. Then let it soak for a few days, agitating it ever so often to keep the dye from separating. When you are ready to pull it out, throw it in the washer again, cold water wash, water level control maxed out and wash it on the long cyle. After the washer does its job, take the hat out, go to the sink and saturate the hat in cold water. A little bleed here is ok, as every hat that I reblocked bled some. If you think too much extra dye is still in the hat, run it through the wash cycle once more. I have never had to do that, and you problaby won't either. There are many variables that determine what the final dyed hat will look like. Like I said, my results have been great, and I have seen new hats that did not look this good colorwise. There is an unknown area that I have yet to experience. I don't know how the various blends will take to the dye. I have heard that the mottling you see in some hats is due to the felt mixture. Different grades and types of underfur absorb the dye differently. Mottling of the color. Also, if the hat has something like an oil spot that will not wash out, you can expect the dye to highlight this area. But, it is great fun to take an old washed up hat and renovate it. Especially if the hat is made of high quality vintage felt. Fedora