Club Obi Wan

Hey all,

Unearthed my old Akubra Federation today. Dang thing shrank up to nothing over the years. Michaelson, you and Dalexs and Sergei should remember this hat fondly - It's the one that was so softened I could turn it 180 degrees and simply pinch it and it was Last Crusade on the reverse!

Anyway, the hat shrank up suddenly after my third year with it. It went from a 59 to easily a 57. Yeah, taper and all. It was bad. I was going to have it reblocked, but Steve Delk saved my bacon with an Adventurebilt and this thing found a closet...Until today.

I decided it would make a great beater hat for hikes and whatnot, so I pulled out the hat stretcher - Well, it was brutal. Just to get it back on my head took obscene stretching and yes, I wrinkled the felt on one side of the crown. Whatever, it wouldn't fit otherwise. While I was in that process, I quickly re-creased the hat with cold water dousing. I decided if the hat was already destined to look rough anyway (taper, felt stretch) I would crease it to generic TOD look, using a TOD bridge scene photo for reference.

Barring the wrinkling on the side of the crown, how'd I do?

Oh, I also snapped it with my Adventurebilt for comparison.

I think you did a great job on saving a hat that otherwise would have needed to have been tossed. Makes a great Temple of Doom fedora. Good job.

Dave

Good work French! I've said in several other threads that the ToD hat looks great. I think what I always liked about it is that it looks so well traveled. Isn't it interesting that all of our Raider hats seem to eventually end up looking like a ToD hat after they've seen some weather? What does that tell you about the ToD hat? It's been outside! More than once! As you would expect from a world traveling two-fisted daredevil archeologist.

It looks great!

Weston