How many Swales' cut HJ fedoras have you seen? Having never seen one myself I was curious. Is it distinctive enough to look at it and say "oh yeah, that's Swales' all right " . I get that way with other types of art that I know and was just wondering if it holds true for hatmaking also.
I would have to guess as I never kept track, but a good guess would be 25 to 30 over the years. I have seen one side wider than the other side by an eighth of an inch. I have seen many that he left the bumps on the brim where he ended the dimensional cuts. In fact, this has been the rule rather than the exception, the bumps that he never bothered to smooth out. So yes, his cuts are his signature and pretty noticable if you have seen enough of them.
One of the cleaner cuts done by Mr. Swales was on our our Adminstrators HJ he bought from Lee, back when Lee was importing and selling the HJs, long before COW existed. I have had the pleasure to see that hat of Mike's and I used this hat to create my template for my own line of hats.( I later got an HJ in for a reblock that was made by Swales, and it was practically identical in transition points and widths. You can start and end the cut in various places, and I copied Mike's as it was a decent clean cut. Plus it looked dead on to the film.I still have it, on my hatshop wall. This is when I discovered exactly how he did the cuts, as there are many ways to do a dimensional cut, but only one way to do a Swales dimensional cut. A factory dimension cut that is say 2 1/2 on the sides is only that width for about an inch or less, as it then starts to grow. Swales cuts were not this way. His cuts exhibited the side dimensions that were more or less consistent for a much farther distance along the sides of the hat. To me the TOD fedora used in the Bridge PR photo looks to be a factory cut, but I can't swear to it. Just the impression I get.
I'm no expert, but I've had a lot of experience with HJ's, and I think perhaps the consistency of their brim dimensions improved as more and more people started to rorder the Indy hat. Some of the hats were also made by a Mr. Guittard (not sure of the spelling).
Yeah, I have seen cleaner cuts earlier, but before Swales retired, I saw some horrendous ones, with the brims not being equal at all on the sides and with the ugly bumps at the 4 corners. I think he was better early on and got worse. Like he could have cared less how the cuts looked. But that is only my experience. Not many here may know it, but he wasn't the friendliest guy if you tried to order an Indy fedora by phone years ago. He had the atttitude of, " oh no, another Indy nutcase" This was well documented at various times on Indy fan. At other times he was a charmer, or so I have been told. Probably just depended upon how he felt on any given day. But these are just my opinons, and nothing else.
Fedora:
A wealth of information, as usual. Thank you. Given those dimensions, do you know why the TOD is considered to have a "wider" brim than the Raiders fedora?
I never heard that before, that the TOD had a wider brim. The widest brim was the Raiders fedora and I know for a fact it was 2 7/8 by 2 5/8. If you ask how I know, I will have to put you off for now, but trust me on this one. Now, what confuses the matter is the placement of some odd, non HJs in the last two films. So, when you look, you have to ask, is that an HJ, or a Stetson? Part of it may be perception too. A tapered hat with the same size brim as a straight hat, will appear to be larger on the tapered hat. That is just how this sort of thing works. So tapered hats generally look better with less brim as opposed to a more straight sided hat. Since Stetson originally had the "rights" to make the post film hats, what they sold us had another name at that time. 2 5/8 by 2 3/8 brim widths, factory cut. When they let DP(I think they were the one who got it next) Stetson still sold their official Indy hat that was placed in the film(s) but changed the name to Temple, which still pointed toward it being an Indy fedora. They just could not advertise that Indy was wearing a Stetson anymore. I am not sure, but I think the DP comes with a 2 3/4 by 2 1/2 which probably copied the film specs of the Hj, but this is only conjecture on my part because I honestly do not know for sure.
My last word on Swales brim cuts for the film hats is he was not perfectly consistent in the side widths. So, I think if they changed one hat for another during filming, you might perceive different brims. I know the scene where Indy is sitting in the SOC before he is invited into the bar, that front brim looks to be a full 3 inches to me. Which is very possible as the Poet originally came with a 3 inch brim all the way around. But, some could have come in a 2 7/8 as well. That is the way things happen in hat factories. They would not sweat 1/8 of an inch when doing the original brim cuts with the automated brim cutter. An employee could have reset the brim cutter from a 4 inch brim to a 3 and set it just a tad short. $#&# happens. Fedora
