Club Obi Wan

Well, sort of anyways. I've read that you can't actually rebash a wool hat, but I did my best with the information from a tutorial I found somewhere around here. Here's a pic from before:



And here's the after:



I used water to wet the crease and then just shaped it. It hasn't popped out, but I don't know if it'll stay. The hat is extremely soft and it has a snap brim, so as of yet I've had no luck whatsoever styling it, but hopefully this rebash will last until my AB comes in.

It's a definite improvement, Risu! The front pinch looks nice, too. For a wool hat, I think you did a pretty good job of it.

yup...i gunna have to agree with bink on this one...quite an improvement!!!

is that a dorfman? if so, I posted a thread not too long ago where I bashed on with some success, and yours looks almost exactly like mine did. here's a warning though.. those hats are VERY prone to tapering and shrinking. mine looks like a little teepee now, and I can't even pull it down over my head. so yeah, wetting your fingers and rubbing into the wool will work fine, but don't apply too much water directly to the hat.

yours looks great by the way.

edit: not only will the bash stay, that pinch is going to be near impossible to ever get out. although I've never steamed my dorfman..

It's not a dorfman, it's a hat I got for $30 on an online costume shop. The sweat says Morris. It's not a horrible hat though for the price, it just had a really wide pinch, which looks horrible in my opinion. The pinch is still in, but I haven't worn it yet. Since the crown is so short, I may not be able to get the thing onto my head with the much tighter pinch, but we'll see.

well, for the same price and material, I'd wager that it'll respond the same. and it really does look identical.

Well, as you can see from my new avatar, the hat still fits. I'm actually surprised it didn't shrink much, because I actually dipped the front of the crown in water to wet it. It looks pretty good, but when I pull the hat all the way on you can see the shape of my head push out the bashes a bit. That's on account of the short crown though, nothing to be done about that. For all intensive purposes, it's now a small, kind of "special" looking Indy hat, but it's better than the Disney hat.

I had the SAME exact thing you're talking about with your head pushing the bash out a bit. while I'm convinced that my hat was a size too small, you can get rid of that by not having such a deep bash.. just don't have the side dents go back so far, and they shouldn't bump your head.

I don't really have a choice. If I try to make them smaller they just pop back in.

Risu wrote:I don't really have a choice. If I try to make them smaller they just pop back in.

yeah.. that was my problem.

this was my dorfman.. viewtopic.php?t=23847&highlight=

I had to run the thing under the faucet to get it wet enough to be able to take the side dents out, and that's what shrunk it. so yea you're probably stuck with it now, but if it fits you well enough, who cares.

That thread gave me lots of ideas, since this hat does look so similar to yours. Did you ever try to cut off the hemmed edge? I've been considering using a seam ripper on all the thread and carefully removing it, then iron the folded over part flat and giving it a dimensional cut on the brim. with the measurements I got, the brim would be just big enough in the front and back so long as I didn't trim anything. I also thought about taking off the ribbon so I could turn it to make the whole hat look turned. Something I may consider now.

yup, I cut it off a few days ago out of curiosity. don't do it. the brim completely flops without it. it's got a plastic cord running around the length of it that gives it shape. well, maybe it doesn't exactly FLOP.. but it's not a good idea.

Hm. I was wondering about that. Good to know. Unless there's some way of stiffening the brim?

hairspray supposedly works well.. but to cut off the bound edge on the dorfman, I had to take off about half an inch. that's a LOT and now it looks way too small. measure yours out first..

Oh, I'm not planning on cutting it off. I'm going to rip out the seams and iron the brim flat. It adds 3/8" to the brim all the way around. (as long as I can get it flat.

Well, I went out tonight to get some needles and happened upon some RIT dye. I bought both and cut the ribbon off my hat, then dyed it black. The hat is darker than it should be, so absolute black should look correct in contrast to the chroma of the hat. Once it dries I plan to sew it on with the bow a little bit off center, so as to make the hat look turned, even though it isn't. I'll post some pics tomorrow maybe once it's done.

EDIT: OK, so the ribbon dried and the dye didn't take. I don't have access to a stove and I still have 3/4 of a packet left, can anybody give me some tips to make it work the second time around?

So I took the wire out of my hat's brim yesterday and ironed it flat, and as expected the brim is now very........... limp. Is there anything I can use on it to stiffen it up a bit?

they sell felt stiffener (dont know where), but hairspray also is supposed to work. although I think you have to apply it regularly.

Which stiffiner is best? I found Scout and Kahl's online.

OK, here are a couple pics.



The brim doesn't really hold it's shape unless I keep it on that printer or on my head. Also, you can tell I didn't do a great job trimming the brim. I'll fix that once I can get my hands on some sharper scissors.



You might also notice that white line all the way around the brim, that was where it was folded over before I ironed it flat.

So, opinions? Criticism? Slap in the mouth for making such a horrible hat? All welcome.

Looks good

I tried to rebash my hat too, but its not going too well I tried clamping it with big clamps and that helped, but the crease just wont stay. (I am afraid to iron or steam it)

-robby