My hats

[Darrell4926]

Hello Everyone,

It has been a long time since I have been here to the C.O.W. Forum.
I have been a little busy for a few years, family and health issues.
Any way I purchased an Adventure Built Hat back in late 2006 and
received it early 2007. I have never worn my hat other than trying
it on, I keep it stored in a hat box. I know your gonna ask why, well
I just don't want anything to happen to it.

I have also made a few hats, I made a new hat about 6 months ago,
it has a leather hat band and a 3.25" brim, not a Indy style.
I am thinking about making another, my next hat might just be
a lite grey with a black grosgrain, black leather sweat band, white silk
liner. I may go with a medium grey hat color, not sure which would
be the best choice.
I thought that I might post photos of my hats, looking for a little feed
back on my work. I know my crown height isn't high enough for a Indy
so I need to fix my home made blocking pieces by adding a 1" thick piece
of wood to the base of the block.

Thank you for your time and help,
Darrell

[Howard Weinstein]

Looks good to me! And it's fun, isn't it? Playing with hats is a very "Zen" activity, during which you're so focused on the felt that the rest of the world kind of fades away for a while. I find it relaxing.

Are you starting with and re-blocking an existing finished hat? Or are you starting with a raw hat body?

[Darrell4926]

Hi Howard,

I haven't done any reblocks, every hat that I have made starts with a rabbit fur
felt hat body plus all of the other pieces needed to make the hat. Normally I
order from hatsupply , I get sandpaper from auto parts stores, normally a
good place to find the fine sandpaper. I plan to buy some wood from home
depot to fix my hat block and make something that I can use to flatten or
help when shaping the brim.
So far every hat that I have made has been a large or 7 3/8's.

Darrell

[Glenville86]

Looks like a fun hobby. There was a time, I would take certain types of western hats and cut the brim and reshape into western/fedora styles.

[Indiana Croft]

Nice job, I'm not hatter and I can totally understand the need to protect the Adventurebilt.
Is it rabbit or beaver.
I have one in beaver, and it can take it.

But back to your hat, has a nice Man with no Name look to it.
I Like it.

Croft

[davidd]

You made that hat? Wow! That's so cool! I thought it was an Akubra! Nice work!

[Darrell4926]

My Adventure Built Hat is rabbit fur, it is a high quality hat.
The surface is smooth to the touch.
Today I took a picture of my Adventure Built Hat next to the
hat that I made and I can see that I need to do a bit of sanding
and try to smooth the surface. It will take a little weight off of
it too.
Well I tried to find the pictures that I made but so far I haven't
found them. I am using a kindle to take pictures and upload
and post messages, I guess that I should use something different
it seems that kindle puts pictures where it decides to store them.
I checked the crown height and the two hats are almost the same
height.
Maybe I will be able to upload the photos later after I find them?

Thank you all for all the positive replies guess I am doing a little
better than I thought. I will do some sanding the post some updated
photos, providing I am able to find where kindle is hiding them??

[Howard Weinstein]

Hi Howard,

I haven't done any reblocks, every hat that I have made starts with a rabbit fur
felt hat body plus all of the other pieces needed to make the hat. Normally I
order from hatsupply , I get sandpaper from auto parts stores, normally a
good place to find the fine sandpaper. I plan to buy some wood from home
depot to fix my hat block and make something that I can use to flatten or
help when shaping the brim.

Darrell

Darrell: Wow -- now I'm even MORE impressed!
How did you learn to put the components together -- trial and error?

Howard

[Darrell4926]

Well I actually got the bug for making hats on this forum.
I read just about every post made by Steve if he posted
a photo of a Fedora worn in the movie or a hat that he was working
on I downloaded the image, I did a lot of copy and paste
into Microsoft Word 2003. I also purchased a book on hat making,
and purchased about 4 hat brim blocks off of Ebay , old antiques
dating back to 1935.
I also ask Marc a lot of questions on hat making, Marc and Steve
pay attention to every detail.
I have a large collection of information on making hats from a lot of
Research and I am still learning.

I thought that I would try my hand at a grey Fedora style hat and I
have been looking at lite grey, dark grey and medium grey fur felts,
Black Grosgrain, not sure about a color for a wreath and or a liner
color???

[Darrell4926]

Well I have been away for a long time, there is a lot to catch up on.
I was just reading about the Federation IV, that is a high crown.
I was a bit surprised when I read about the hats being sold with
open crowns, but that is a good ideal, the customer gets to bash
It the way he wants to. I am going to try for a higher crown on
the grey Fedora, 5 5/8's, white silk liner, Brown sweatband, black
Grosgrain ribbon, hope I can get this hat right??
The rabbit fur felt is a dark grey.