Club Obi Wan

happy holidays all! i hope everyone is off to a good start to their holiday season

the holiday season for me involves my honeymoon to jamaica. i was looking forward to having my AB beaver for the trip but unfortunately she needed a reblock and resize so its currently no. 23,324 in fedora's backlog ......and after looking at all of the activities that we had planned, water sport/beach activities, i was apprehensive of taking my HJ down there.

so the fed got the call to go on the trip....my experiment hat if some of you can recall. i prepped it tonite and gave it an 'idol grab' bash with the new steam kettle. here's some pics:



compared to:



and the side swoop:



compared to:



i thought it came out quite nice and she's ready to go! by the time i get back i'm hoping she looks very SOC from the beating i'm going to give it!

i originally did a cold water bash on the hat. putting it under the steam tonite activated the stiffener and now she's as stiff as a board....not too stiff, but stiff enough that it will hold up to physical abuse. man these akubras are great hats! i highly recommend getting one of these if you haven't already.

cheers and happy holidays!

Nice job, G! Is it just my imagination, or is the center of the bow on that Akubra altered a little? It looks less "tight", to me. Nice attention to the brim detail, as well. Pics like this of a nice standard Federation just make me want one even more. Looks great!

-GCR

thanks GCR...its nice to get compliments from a person who loves to bash hats (and is quite skillful at it), like you. i didn't change the bow at all....cuz i don't know how. maybe that'll be the next class i take

Looks like you got it goin' on! For a sec, I thought that was your HJ.

Indiana G wrote:thanks GCR...its nice to get compliments from a person who loves to bash hats (and is quite skillful at it), like you. i didn't change the bow at all....cuz i don't know how. maybe that'll be the next class i take

Hey, thanks! I actually haven't bashed a fresh, open-crown hat in almost 3 years! I tweaked my Akubra Fed D coutless times, but I am really itchin' to get my JPD, nothing beats a nice open-crown fedora to fiddle with and perfect your different creasing techniques.

If you ever feel the need to mess with the bow, the tutorial on adjusting the center of the bow is around here somewhere...but it looks like you got a nice lookin' bow right from the factory. Take care, wear it in good health!

-GCR

the holiday season for me involves my honeymoon to jamaica.

So was mine...to Hedonism 2. Best time of my life. However, THAT is not the hat you wanna be taking with you to the Caribbean. Straw, man. Straw. Not hot and heavy felt in that climate. LOL! Really, you spend most of your time in the ocean as it is and I doubt you'll be needing a hat at all as much as you think. At least thats how it was when I went.

So, where you going to? Lemme guess. Sandals?

come on tone.....first one wasn't blurry ....geez i shocked myself on that one....i was like, am i using the same camera???

indiana tone wrote:

Oh, and here's to a pleasant honeymoon! Congrats.

thanks buddy. tone, heres to you and your family this holiday season! i look forward to many more hat adventues with you in 2007!

agent5 wrote:

So, where you going to? Lemme guess. Sandals?

....in ocho rios....man, you're good! i figure if indy had his hat in peru, egypt, and india, then it's good enough for me! i'll fill you all in with the sun stroke story when i get back

oh, and another attribute about the fed reg: i tried shaping the crown too much yesterday and she taperred on me i thought that was it for the stovepipe look. this morning i steamed the open crown back in.....let her cool and re-steamed it and re-bashed....it was as good as new! this hat is a trooper!

GCR wrote:If you ever feel the need to mess with the bow, the tutorial on adjusting the center of the bow is around here somewhere...

http://dalexs.whitvani.net/hat/hatpage.html

Awesome looking Fed. The brim is perfect.

VP wrote:

GCR wrote:If you ever feel the need to mess with the bow, the tutorial on adjusting the center of the bow is around here somewhere...

http://dalexs.whitvani.net/hat/hatpage.html

Ah, yes. Dalexs' tutorial is great...if you can sew. Personally, I couldn't sew a stitch to save my life, so when I wanted to change the way the bow looked on my Fed Deluxe, I went with the process Dakota Ellison describes in this thread:

viewtopic.php?t=7080&highlight=bow

Fedora has another method that he describes as well, and technically they both involve stitching, but Dakota's method is quicker and involves far less sewing-ability, so I opted for that one.

-GCR

i figure if indy had his hat in peru, egypt, and india, then it's good enough for me!

You are aware the Indy trilogy is just a fictional piece of entertainment and that Harrison Ford hated wearing that hat in the heat, but did it as it was his job at the time.
I just try to use common sense as a rule. When it's hot, why wear something that is made to help keep you warm?
I personally always wondered that about the films myself. Why would he be wearing a leather jacket and felt hat in the desert anyways? Never made sense to me, but nonetheless, it is cool...being a movie and all.

In any case, if you don't pass out from heat exaustion, I'm sure you'll have a fabulous time on your honeymoon. If I could live in Jamaica I would. Well, maybe a nice summer home.

agent5 wrote:You are aware the Indy trilogy is just a fictional piece of entertainment and that Harrison Ford hated wearing that hat in the heat, but did it as it was his job at the time.

Wait! You're telling me Indiana Jones wasn't REAL? Oh, great! You probably go around telling little kids there's no Santa Claus, too!

Randy

Wait! You're telling me Indiana Jones wasn't REAL?

Sir, I do not jest.

agent5 wrote:

i figure if indy had his hat in peru, egypt, and india, then it's good enough for me!

You are aware the Indy trilogy is just a fictional piece of entertainment and that Harrison Ford hated wearing that hat in the heat, but did it as it was his job at the time.
I just try to use common sense as a rule. When it's hot, why wear something that is made to help keep you warm?
I personally always wondered that about the films myself. Why would he be wearing a leather jacket and felt hat in the desert anyways? Never made sense to me, but nonetheless, it is cool...being a movie and all.

In any case, if you don't pass out from heat exaustion, I'm sure you'll have a fabulous time on your honeymoon. If I could live in Jamaica I would. Well, maybe a nice summer home.

These are some good points. I've thought many of the same things myself, and I have a PB Indy straw that I wear on particularly hot California days. A felt hat in the heat will make your head sopping wet (as there are no holes in these hats for ventilation like ballcaps or a fairly open weave straw hat), and make your hair all oily and grimy. On a honeymoon, you WANT your wife to be running her fingers through your hair, right? That won't be happening if your hair feels like a used oil pan.

The heat your head generates has nowhere to go (remember that whole thing from The Matrix about BTU's of body heat? ), and stews around inside your hat, making you feel nothing but HOT. As you lose a good amount of heat through your head, conversely, the rest of your body will also feel very hot and uncomfortable if your head is not properly ventilated when you're in a very warm climate where the humidity is sure to be high. This can cause you to go through fluids like a fish to avoid dehydration (and I know that sounds extreme, but trust me, it can happen if you aren't careful).

At the San Diego Comic Con, I am always going through bottles of water every other hour or so because I am sweating so much from wearing everything, including my hat, and that's in a building that is air conditioned down to about 70 degrees.

As for the jacket, which I'm sure you're not taking to Jamaica, the same thing that happens to your head will happen to the rest of your torso, and that's no fun. I only put up with it at the SDCC because it's part of the costume, and the look. If you look at Ford's shirt in a number of scenes, it is soaked with sweat, and that's not spray bottle sweat, that's "wearing warm clothes in hundred degree Tunisian heat" sweat.

As 5 said, common sense is a good rule of thumb. Of course, if you want to get those screen accurate salt stains on your hat's ribbon, and don't mind a little trip to a foreign hospital, go for it!

thanks for words of wisdom gents

tomorrow, i'm getting a brush cut (probably no.1 or 2 clippers all the way around) so i don't have to fuss with my hair when i'm on vacation. i did this last year and my wife really liked it.......and so my sister can call me 'the rock' again....can you smell what the rock is cookin? my wife won't be running her fingers through that, but she will be rubbing my velvetty head alot....then i can justify wearing the fed in 90 degree heat

bear in mind that i won't be wearing my hat all the time.....we're scheduled to do alot of watersport activities so the fed will probably stay in the hotel most of the time....i'm packing linen shirts and clam diggers so no worries of me baking myself.

my wested will have to take the trip as i need to stay warm to and from the airport....though its only a little above freezing at the moment (us canucks can get away with t-shirt and shorts to the airport in weather like that )

Indiana G! Don't listen to the bad guys claiming that "Indy trilogy is just a fictional piece of entertainment"! As I probably wrote, I had proudly worn my fedora in Kenya a few months ago. Ok, ok - it was on the mornings and evenings and not in the middle of a sunny day... Anyway, don't give up!

Cheers,
:junior: Raider