Club Obi Wan

If I'm not mistaken, doesn't Akubra make the Federation in grey/gray? If so, how does one get one? It's not on the HatsDirect website. Anyone know?

JKL
Ron

It's on the website...click on the regular Federation, and go to the color drop down menu underneath the pic of the hat (Mid Brown will appear as the default) click the menu and select "Carbon Gray" instead.

-GCR

Wow! I can't believe I missed that. Thanks.

JKL
Ron

I just got mine a few weeks ago. I love it!

The felt is quite a bit softer than the brown Regular Federation. Softness/quality-wise it very closely matches my brown Federation Deluxe.

It bashed very quickly into an almost perfect match to my almost-year-old Fed Deluxe. I used a little water for the front pinch, but the rest was bashed dry.

Because I knew I wanted to turn this hat I ordered it one size up (60 vs. 59) which I will do with ALL the hats I plan to turn from now on. After turning and bashing I had some extra room on the sides at the sweatband. I wet only about 2" of the sweatband in just those spots and did the "lambshade trick" for about five minutes. Now it fits me well, and I got a little more "reverse taper" out of this hat than my brown Fed has.

Winston, those are some nice looking Akubras!

Agreed! Those are really nice. Is there any green tint to the Fed Deluxe? My Fed looks brown, until I try to wear it with a brown suit, and then the green really shows. Has anyone ever successfully dyed a Fed to lessen or eliminate the green tint?

JKL
Ron

I love my grey Fed!



Funny you mention green. Whenever I wear this lid anywhere near trees, the thing turns green! I was freaking out the first time I wore it Yosemite, which was right after I got it. It was really green and I thought something happened to it. But after I got it out of the forest and out into the open sun, it turned back to grey. What the heck is that all about?

...KC

Thanks Bink!

Thankfully, the Fed Deluxe doesn't have the "hint" of green that the regular Federation does. It's also slightly lighter brown, which I think is the perfect Indy brown. In addition to being a better shade of brown the Fed Deluxe is a lot softer right out of the box and a lot easier to bash.

There's a tutorial around here somewhere by Indiana Tone about bleaching out the green from a Regular Federation, which he did a gtreat job on. Based on the before and after pictures I'd say his bleaching technique should be standard maintainance for all Regular Fed owners.

Hey, KC, why does your Akubra look brick colored in that photo?

Those are beautiful hats. The grey really looks great with the contrasting black band. I don't know why so many fedoras today come with same color ribbons. I hate that.