Club Obi Wan

Well, it needs to be done that way if you want to reblock your hat. Consider it practice. But you won't be able to properly reblock your hat if you leave the sweatband and ribbon on.

Dave

Well, I tried a "semi-reblock" with my hat. Didn't have the guts to remove the sweatband yet. I think it kinda shortened the crown a bit, not sure. Problem is, I didn't block it using my head shape. I sort of followed the hat's natural oval shape. The hat looked okay when it wasn't on my head, but as soon as I put it on, my head pushed the sides out again making the hat taper... I guess it's time to make another block... round oval.

I'm gonna have to find some felt cowboy hats to experiment on for removing and stitching back the sweatband before I fully reblock my Christy's.

Erri wrote:The ribbon I requested on my Burma hat was 42mm (or 43mm, hard to say exactly), although they only had it in that colour and not the one I wanted... so, depending on the availability, they do accomodate to your request, as jlee562 said.

Hey Erri,
I'm thinking of getting a Burma as well. I read your previous posts about the ribbon color. Have you swapped your ribbon for a dark brown ribbon? I think you said the color of the Burma would go best with a dark brown, is that correct?

From what I've seen of the Burma color, I would think too that a dark brown would go best with it. Even the name "Burma" makes one think of "green."

I'll be sure to ask about the dark ribbon. I recently received a sable but with very light brown ribbon, which I'm replacing as soon as the new ribbon arrives.

I didn't change it yet because I still have to find a dark ribbon of the same size. Apparently the most common width is 38mm... I also admit I didn't search for it too much because I haven't had much time lately.

just ordered my Christy's Adventurer a week ago...can't wait

ajocampo wrote:just ordered my Christy's Adventurer a week ago...can't wait

Welcome to COW and I hope you enjoy I'm sure you'll enjoy your new hat once you get it.

thanks yeah it's supposed to come in mid next week. I'm telling you, i'm counting down the hours! hahaha

I can just imagine... I was so anxious to get mine. As soon as the post office called me to tell me that the package arrived, I immediately rushed over there.

hahaha yeah~

how long have you had your hat now?

I've had it since December, but I bought it 2nd hand from Texan Scott so I don't know how long he's had it. I still wear it almost everyday... It did kinda taper due to the summer heat here, but I managed to fix it with a semi-reblock. You live in a colder climate so heat wouldn't be much of a problem.

Yeah that makes sense...it's really humid there in the philippines...and btw...I forgot to mention, I am filipino hahaha...but I live here in Toronto lol. Yeah I guess I wouldn't have to worry much about it tapering.

So you got the whole indy ensemble? I think i'm just gonna get like a safari shirt or something...wear jeans etc..lol actually i have a leather jacket thats similar to his...in a way lol

Wow! A "kababayan" here in the forums! Actually, I had a feeling you were Filipino because of your name.

It's super hot here now. When I'm not wearing the hat, I stretch it over the block. After this heatwave I'll have to deal with the rains come june.

As for the other gear, i don't have any except for the hat.

hahaha yeah, kababayan!

whoa that *****...yeah the humid air acts like a shrinking agent or something...

(Moderator edit: Do not work around the word censor)

didnt know that was gonna be censored lol

(Moderator: Yep, and you may wish to refresh yourselves with the rules: http://indygear.com/cow/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=28929 _

woops...sorry about that, my bad.

Well, I hope you post pics when you get it.

definitely~

Hey guys. Just wanted to show some comparison pics of my Christys' before and after the conversion from CS to Raiders.

Here is the CS bash




and here the same hat with different bash




Sorry for the bad quality pcs, they were taken with my cellphone in bad light.


Any comments?

Very nice bash Restless!

shear perfection.

I personally like the raiders bash

Both of those bashes look really good!

Thank you guys

Looks great with both, but Ive always preferred the Raiders look.

fenris wrote:Well, I tried a "semi-reblock" with my hat. Didn't have the guts to remove the sweatband yet. I think it kinda shortened the crown a bit, not sure. Problem is, I didn't block it using my head shape. I sort of followed the hat's natural oval shape. The hat looked okay when it wasn't on my head, but as soon as I put it on, my head pushed the sides out again making the hat taper... I guess it's time to make another block... round oval.

I'm gonna have to find some felt cowboy hats to experiment on for removing and stitching back the sweatband before I fully reblock my Christy's.

I thought I read somewhere that if youre not changing the size, then you can remove the liner, fold the sweat down, and reblock that way.

scottyrocks6 wrote:

fenris wrote:Well, I tried a "semi-reblock" with my hat. Didn't have the guts to remove the sweatband yet. I think it kinda shortened the crown a bit, not sure. Problem is, I didn't block it using my head shape. I sort of followed the hat's natural oval shape. The hat looked okay when it wasn't on my head, but as soon as I put it on, my head pushed the sides out again making the hat taper... I guess it's time to make another block... round oval.

I'm gonna have to find some felt cowboy hats to experiment on for removing and stitching back the sweatband before I fully reblock my Christy's.

I thought I read somewhere that if youre not changing the size, then you can remove the liner, fold the sweat down, and reblock that way.

Haven't read that yet. What I did was make a block that tapers downwards to accommodate the sweatband. I really need to make another one which is round oval so that the hat doesn't look tapered when I wear it. On its own, it looks okay. When I wear it, taper!

I just measured the crown on my hat and found out that I had lost almost 3/4 of an inch! Wow! It really does shrink, doesn't it?

No wonder the brim looks so big... I was used to the proportions of the original higher crown.

Is it possible to stretch the crown out again or is this it? No going back to the original height? If so, maybe I'll just trim the brim to make it more proportional to the crown height and just buy another hat.

In this case it sounds like youll need to remove the ribbon and sweat, and use some of the brim in the body/crown section of the hat. Leave the zip tie on it, on the block, until its completely dry, like for a week. Then sew in the sweat immediately at the new brim break.

Depending on how 'stretchable' the felt is (probably not much), youll wind up with a slightly smaller brim, but youll gain some crown height back.

Well, that's my next plan. But I need a new hat before I even try it.

Problem is, I might shrink it further and end up with a 4" crown and a 1" brim! Hahaha!

Re-measured the crown again... Turns out I was wrong on the first measurement. The final crown height came to about 5mm less (well, my approximation anyway) than 5 1/2 inches. It was two lines less than 5.5 on my ruler. So the crown didn't shrink that much as I first thought. I would've never thought that that small a difference in height can change the look and/or proportions of the hat...

Edit:
So that comes to 1/6th of an inch lost if my calculations are right (which they usually aren't as I'm terrible with math, especially fractions).

Is it possible to stretch the crown out again or is this it? No going back to the original height? If so, maybe I'll just trim the brim to make it more proportional to the crown height and just buy another hat.

Very difficult to get that original crown back, bordering on impossible. Unless you have one of those mechanical crown stretchers. Turn it on, so it heats us, mist the crown and crank it out. This stretches out the top of the crown, so that when you pull it over the block, the stretched out top turns into that extra crown height you needed. Without one, it's a waste of time to try to stretch that felt back out. Or my experience anyways. I spent alot of hours early on trying to stretch crowns back out, by hand. I think you would have to have the strength of Super Man to do it.

Fedora wrote:

Is it possible to stretch the crown out again or is this it? No going back to the original height? If so, maybe I'll just trim the brim to make it more proportional to the crown height and just buy another hat.

Very difficult to get that original crown back, bordering on impossible. Unless you have one of those mechanical crown stretchers. Turn it on, so it heats us, mist the crown and crank it out. This stretches out the top of the crown, so that when you pull it over the block, the stretched out top turns into that extra crown height you needed. Without one, it's a waste of time to try to stretch that felt back out. Or my experience anyways. I spent alot of hours early on trying to stretch crowns back out, by hand. I think you would have to have the strength of Super Man to do it.

Thanks for the reply, Steve! I really appreciate having a great hatter respond to my queries. I wish I did have something like the tool you mentioned...

Alas, I do not have the resources to get hold of proper tools to fix my hat. Even if I did have the money to buy all the blocks, flanges, and other stuff needed; I would probably just buy a hat from you or John or just get a Henry. In other words, if I had the money, I wouldn't waste my time reblocking the Christy's... I'd just buy a better hat! Hahaha!

Even getting the Christy's was a big leap for me. I live in a 3rd world country where purchases like that aren't popular... in fact, they think it's downright crazy to pay so much for a hat.

yeah it's unfortunate philippines is like that still. but think of it this way...only a few filipinos have an indy hat lol

ajocampo wrote:yeah it's unfortunate philippines is like that still. but think of it this way...only a few filipinos have an indy hat lol

Yeah, but what's weird is despite being a 3rd-world country, the Philippines has a lot of high-end car dealerships... There's a Ferrari dealership (which went belly-up, obviously), MINI (I wouldn't really call it high-end, but to people here, it is), Audi (yes, even the same model Tony Stark drives), BMW (yeah, but every country probably has them), etc... Which begs me to ask the question, is the Philippines really that poor? People here invest too much on cars and we have the worst traffic jams to prove it!

As for the hat, I'm sure there are 2 Filipinos here who have Dorfmans... The shop that was selling 'em sold out their last 2 Indy DP's. I recall a guy walking up to me all excited about the hat and asked me how much and where I got it. The disappointment on his face was immediate when I told him it was ordered online and how much it cost. That's how stingy most Filipinos are when it comes to purchases like hats. Let's face it, a $100 is equivalent to 5-thousand pesos here (well, now it's just 4,300... but when I got the Christy's it was around 5,000)... Oh, that's how much the dorfman cost at the store I saw it in... 5,500 pesos! Rip off!

Yeah...basically the gap between rich and poor is growing..

btw...i always forgot to ask ppl this...there a way to waterproof a christy's hat? or any indy hat?

I used scotchgard protector... Worked for me... Against the water, not the heat.

ajocampo wrote:there a way to waterproof a christy's hat? or any indy hat?

well many believe that christys' felt is very sensible to water and then to taper, but I used a waterproofing spray on it and now my hat is quite resistant to water. I put it under the flow of the sink and the water just slipped on the surface - this for about 10 seconds, then the felt started to get wet.

the product I used is made by Panizza, a well-known italian hat industry. not famous as borsalino, but maybe some of you have heard of it.

Restless Dreamer wrote:

ajocampo wrote:there a way to waterproof a christy's hat? or any indy hat?

well many believe that christys' felt is very sensible to water and then to taper, but I used a waterproofing spray on it and now my hat is quite resistant to water. I put it under the flow of the sink and the water just slipped on the surface - this for about 10 seconds, then the felt started to get wet.

the product I used is made by Panizza, a well-known italian hat industry. not famous as borsalino, but maybe some of you have heard of it.

Yeah I could just imagine it being water proof for only a couple of seconds~ I think I will be putting some waterproof spray on it later on (I don't even have the hat yet LOL).

I've never heard of the hat company Panizza~ Maybe it's only located in Italy? Do they make indy hats as well? What's the name of the spray you used?

well keep in mind that yes, the felt resisted not that long, but it was put under the sink. a light rain or even a brif downpour would not have affected it.

I don't know if Panizza is located only in Italy, but they don't seem to make any Indy-style hats. The waterproofing spray has no actual name. It only reads PANIZZA - revives and waterproofs felt hats.

http://www.panizzacappelli.it/

Although I can't read Italian...thanks for the link~!

ajocampo wrote:Although I can't read Italian...thanks for the link~!

look on the right upper corner of the page: there should be a british flag. click on it and the page will be translated

I found out that Christy's will shorten the crown height, so going forward, my advice to anyone wanting a more SA Christy's: shorter crown: 5 1/4" for Raiders, 5" for LC, ribbon tacked down to the brim break (if you dont like ribbon ride-up), and 2 3/4" front to back brim dimensions and 2 1/2" brim side to side for Raiders. Slightly shorter brim for LC if that is your preference.

Texan Scott wrote:I found out that Christy's will shorten the crown height, so going forward, my advice to anyone wanting a more SA Christy's: shorter crown: 5 1/4" for Raiders, 5" for LC, ribbon tacked down to the brim break (if you dont like ribbon ride-up), and 2 3/4" front to back brim dimensions and 2 1/2" brim side to side for Raiders. Slightly shorter brim for LC if that is your preference.

Are those measurements open crown or bashed?

5-5 1/4" would be total unbashed crown height. Their web site says that the Adventurer has a total height of 5 3/4", almost 6". Really high if you want a Last Crusade styled hat. A LC bashed crown should be around 4 to 4 3/8" depending.

Texan Scott wrote:5-5 1/4" would be total unbashed crown height. Their web site says that the Adventurer has a total height of 5 3/4", almost 6". Really high if you want a Last Crusade styled hat. A LC bashed crown should be around 4 to 4 3/8" depending.

What was the original crown height on my (your) hat? I always assumed it was 5 3/4 as stated on the site. Just wanna know if it indeed shrunk due to my reblock.

Fenris, if it is anything less than 5 1/2" it may have shrunk.

The idea is if you want a LC, ie a lower crown height, you will need to have the crown lowered on new orders. I was told that the Raiders hat was 5 1/4" unbashed crown. However, some will need a higher crown, just depends on the person.

It did shrink... very little. It is about 2 small lines shorter than 5 1/2 on the ruler I was using. Not that much.

( -.-)" still waiting...it should come in this week~

The wait is really the hardest part.

kiltie wrote:Erri -

That is a good looking hat, and generally nice gear. The brim on yours sorts out so much better than mine . On mine, I ironed the back brim for a little less of the flip, but it seems to have had an adverse effect on the way it's viewed from the front as well - not bad, just not as nice as yours.

It only had an adverse effect by the way it looks right? The ironing wont affect the fur itself?

Anyone know a good way to flatten the back of a christy's adventurer?
btw, I just got mine today
I'll post some pics in a bit

I could only suggest to place dictionaries on the brim when you're not wearing it. That way you don't wet it, you don't burn it or anything