Club Obi Wan

Why is there a metal wire in the sweatband of my federation? what will happen if i take it out?

I don't know but I took mine out and it was no problem (it actually started to come out on its own after some heavy abuse by me).

Do you think any other hats have this? I'm due for my Magnoli in a month

I believe all hats have a stiffening ring that keep them a hat and not a pocket. Some use a reed, but yours is metal.

Matt

My dad had a Stetson cowboy hat that had a metal wire in the sweatband, but that's the only hat I've ever seen it in. A guy at the store where he bought it cut the wire when it needed stretching.

All Feds have them. As to why? I'm not real sure.

Are you talking about the monfiliment reed that is used to help shape the sweat, that also happens to be held together by a metal ferrel that happens to be visible in the seam of the sweat?

Or are you talking about actual metal wire in the sweat?
(Which they may be using in place of the long winded description of said device above...)

The funny thing is that I've never actually disassembled a Akubra sweat band.

But in looking closely at mine, there is in fact a metal wire in there.

It is there to help shape the sweat band around the inside of the hat
When done properly, it "bells" the sweat outward, so the edge is actually a bit wider then the rest ofthe band. This wider part sits on the rim of the hat.

What Akubra uses is a heavy wire, probalby piano wire type material.

In custom hats, we use a mono filiment (heavy fishing line...) instead, which is then connected using a metal ferrel, or coupler.

The reed is cut about 1/2-1" bigger then the band and forced into place.
This bells the band out.

Search around the hat section. We have a tutorial about it somewhere.
Its probably the hardest part of replacing a sweat.