Club Obi Wan

What are the drawbacks to saturating your fedora with cold/lukewarm water in order to shape it and kind of bend it out of shape as well?

I just grabbed my FedDix yesterday to make an experiment, and i saturated the hat quite a bit, and bent the felt here and there, and was pleasantly surprised, as when the fedora dried, it looks marvellously like a hat that I've worn, instead of an untouched "Indiana Jones hat" that everyone says "hey indy" to.

Water will obviously give your hat a "worn" and "adventurized" look. The only drawback, is that unless you use a hat block/form to retain the shape while drying, you risk the hat losing its shape.

Sincerely,

Please don't take this the wrong way, but speaking from experience, I'd say this particular idea should enshrined in the pantheon of bad fedora ideas.

I've tried this method myself on more than one hat over the years, and the results have been almost universally bad. As Suess points out, without something to help the hat retain it's shape as it dries (like a block) the hat can shrink, and if it does shrink, it tends to shrink a LOT. That goes for the sweatband, too. Plus, depending on how badly it's been soaked, the hat may appear dry after a while, although it may not be totally dry all the way through, which can lead to further shrinkage later on. All of these things have happened to me with different hats in the past. Soaking may yield positive results initially, but you have to tread very carefully... :!:

-GCR

Soaking a hat?! Talk about taking your chances. Think twice before you do it.

I wear mine (a rabbit fur Stetson, since that's the one I have -- except for the cheap grey wool one) in the rain. I reckon that's what hats are for.

Only it usually doesn't rain hard enough around here for a soaking.

I dunno, you guys are making me feel bad about it, but I got a hat I feel like I can really wear out of it.
I can see how it'd be a bad thing though, of course.

I know it looks like a hat-suicide mission, but It looks nice and broken in and it hasn't tapered a bit.

;0

Hey, look at that, I finally used it. Really though, I'm interested in seeing how it turned out.

The only drawback, is that unless you use a hat block/form to retain the shape while drying, you risk the hat losing its shape

Are you sure? Indy's hat miraculously came back ok after getting soaked!!

Ah, the magic of movies.

yeah I recomend instead of soaking, wearing it in rain or using a spray bottle, or just soaking parts of the hat... Thats what I've done with my akubera

I have shaped all of my Akubras by soaking them in cold water, and never had a problem.........I believe that when I have received them, there has been some sort of instruction manual included that describes using cold water as the process to shape the hat.............

Mufflowne,

Don't feel bad about it. Personally, I wouldn't "soak" the hat as a way of distressing it. If you want to wear it when it is raining, or rough it up a bit with your hands, that's probably a better thing to do. When a hat gets soaked, it takes a long time to dry out, and if it is not stored properly and for the proper amount of time, the felt bunches together and shrinks up something fierce. Contrary to what that old song says, it actually does rain in California, and I've gotten enough hats wet to know what's going to happen if the right precautions aren't taken. The only other thing I am thinking is that water really won't distress your hat. I don't know what, if anything, water would do to make the hat look distressed. If anything, you might want to try what Lee Keppler is doing in this video (http://www.adventure-supply.com/Movie.wmv) to give it a more worn, soft, and distressed look.

OKJ,

The instructions do say that, but I usually spray it with a spray bottle to the degree I really need, and that's it. I wouldn't get it so wet that I can feel the water through the underside of the hat.

JulianK wrote:* * *Are you sure? Indy's hat miraculously came back ok after getting soaked!! * * *

And lo, the secret was shared. Ford's head, was in reality "the," hat block.

Sincerely,

Here.

I got it, soaked it (which helped me not only to get rid of the horrible blocked in bash, but also to make the felt look more aged, have little bumps here and there. Before i soaked it, i was skeptical about the $140 i spent on it because I didn't really like the look of it persay and didn't want to spend twice that much on one of the open-crowns they had in store, so I evaluated its potential.

Now, it instantly became my favorite fedora. It does for me exactly what I wanted it to: it makes me feel like a scoundrel.

Why don't all hats come open-crown? I'm yet to see a blocked-in bash that I find appealing.

How does wearing the hat out in rain differ to soaking it with cold water?

Hm, not too bad. If you did that to an Indy-style hat, the results could make a really good SoC hat.

There is the truth. I wanna do it to a Magnoli HJ. Wonder if it'd mushroom well though.

Nope, but it sure would taper! That's a rabbit hat you're talking about. Please don't do that.

Mufflowne,

I wouldnt risk soaking the HJ,
but Sit on it, beat it a bit, don't be affraid
It will give the hat the right kind of character we all have come to love.

Rabbit felt hats really give you the character when you do that.

Be sure:

this is just an advice, Iam not encouraging you to actually do it, just as an alternative to soaking it.

A wise man once told and showed me this;)

I don't think hats taper immediately once they get wet.... i'm not talking about getting water-saturated any more than if i got caught out in the rain... then again, a full-beaver might handle the water treatment well.

And Dutch, don't worry, I am not afraid of beating a hat. I abused the hat above mere minutes after I bought it (for $140).

though I did wait till i was far from the store, else the hat guys would probably beat me with sticks for abusing it so.

what can I say? I treat my clothes and hats like movie props.

How does wearing the hat out in rain differ to soaking it with cold water?

I guess this depends on what you mean by "soaking". I'm picturing you holding the hat under a faucet or literally soaking it in a bucket or tub. This differs from wearing it in a rainstorm. It's doubtful a hat would ever get as wet in a rainstorm as it would from an intentional soaking. I've worn many hats in the rain and snow and never have I had a hat get soaked all the way through to the inside. When I've intentionally soaked a couple of hats (and I mean SOAKED), they tended to get wet all the way through. You'd have to be out in the rain for a long time, or get caught in one heck of a storm, to have that happen to a decent, fur-felt hat.

Dutch_jones wrote:Mufflowne,

I wouldnt risk soaking the HJ,
but Sit on it, beat it a bit, don't be affraid
It will give the hat the right kind of character we all have come to love.

Rabbit felt hats really give you the character when you do that.

I would have to agree. Quality beaver felt hats may be better in the rain, but rabbit felt can give you that rumpled, "lived in", Raidersesque look with greater ease. Some beaver felt hats can do this, too, but while the beaver felt will recreate the "look", the felt itself will behave differently than rabbit, and it also requires more work. Rabbit responds to squishing and being sat on much quicker than beaver, and the results tend to be very "Raiders". One of my favorite Raiders hats over the years was my old Rabbit-felt AB that I bashed "Cairo" style. It responded to the bash quite well and gave me very "SA" results. If it had fit me better, I would have kept it. It was probably the closest that I, personally, have come to owning a hat like the Raiders-era HJ (rabbit-felt, exact ribbon and block shape, great color and lots of "Cairo" character). There's no need to soak a rabbit felt hat, just beat it up a little.

-GCR

I was thinking the same thing as GCR. What do you mean by "soaking"? This is like people who come in to my work and say "poster size." One person means 24"x36", and the other just means 11"x17". Definitions differ. Do you mean taking a spray bottle to it and giving it a light spritzing of water, or do you mean, as GCR said, dunking it in a bathtub or wearing it in the shower? There's two ends of that extreme, my friend, and while I have been in a rain so bad that it soaked right through my old Keppler lid to my head, it's not something you want to go doing to your hat on purpose. Beating it up and sitting on it, giving it a little roughing up will give it that distressed, beat up look with character that you want.

By soaking I mean getting the body of the hat saturated with water on the outside, but not enough to get the liner wet.

I dunno, the only time i got caught caught in the rain with a fur-felt was with my Tonak, but it didn't have a liner. When I got home it was completely wet, but once it dried it looked really cool actually, like it's lasted through several world wars with good results. Pounds of character.

So I guess i meant "simulating" getting rained on quite a bit.

When I first got my Akubra Feddie, I was leery of steaming, but obviously needed to shape the thing. Towards that end, I used a spray bottle and cold water. I sprayed it plenty, but I also really tended to the hat while I shaped it, and wore it just sitting around my apartment while it dried, periodically checking to make sure it looked right while wearing.

If by "soak" you mean "fully submerge in water and leave there for a bit", I'd say bad idea. If you mean "thoroughly wet", well, yeah, that's better. In my case, I was happy with the results.


One other thing. I recently learned that steaming will only discolor a hat if the hat is colored/made with powder. A lot of Stetsons, Baileys, etc. have this issue, so you're better off using cold water. If the hat isn't powdered, then steam away. I got a hat recently from Rand's in Billings, MT, and I need to steam it a bit to ease the pressure on my forehead. I called to ask them and they said steam is no problem.

Not sure how other hats are made, but it's worth asking when you buy.

Mlow:

What is the hat in the photos? The bound brim edge has me guessing.

Sincerely,

Solo:

yeah i mean getting it somewhat wet, not leave ina bucket of water

Seuss:

Actually it's a Biltmore. It's part rabbit part beaver, not exactly sure which model it is, but I think it's the Senator model on the very bottom of this page:
http://www.biltmorehats.com/catalogueswinter2007.htm
Came with a pin which I immediately took off. And...erm...feathers.

What's hatmaker's obsession with feathers? They weren't commonly worn in the 50's were they?

Feathers? Don't know if they were popular in the 50's, but IMO definately would not work for today!

My wife bashed my hat, and I thought she did a good job until I found this site. I re-bashed it and had to use cold water to get it to keep. I just put some water in my cupped hand and applied it. I think it dried perfectly and am very happy. I do wear it in the rain, too. Here it is:

http://storage.vnunited.com/image_files ... turer6.JPG

http://storage.vnunited.com/image_files ... turer9.JPG

mufflowne,

I can't say that I like how it turned out becasue I don't know how it looked before you soaked it. Do have any pics of the same hat before the soaking.

Thanks! Actually that's my re-bash. She had a much lower crown. It is at 5" tall now, and any taller doesn't look right on me. I think this works for me.

http://storage.vnunited.com/image_files ... urer10.JPG

Sorry. no pics b4 soaking...

No before pics either, sorry.

Thanks for the compliments. I think the brim is perfect, heck, I think the HAT is perfect!

I got it for Christmas 2007. Akubra had just released it. They said that they had a problem with naming the style (some copywrite issue or something) and had to redo their supply. I ordered it in November and had to wait until it was released.