Club Obi Wan

Well, I have been saving up for my Fed IV but I just couldn't handle the crummy low-slung profile of my wool DP anymore. Even though I knew the risks, I decided to more or less follow the legendary Indy Falco DP Fur Felt rebash plan and here are the results.


The profile is not all one could wish for but what are you gonna do with the material at hand?



The center dent was incredibly hard to get even this close to right. It really holds the creases from the ridiculous bash DP puts in these hats to begin with this. Add to that the absurd amount of taper these hats possess off the shelf and it's a real beast to get this cheap wool felt to cooperate.

But in the immortal words of Rodney Dangerfield "What did ya, get this hat free with a bowl of soup? . . . Looks good on you, though."



By the way the sweat stains are honestly come by -- I wear this thing everywhere, even on my hot summer hikes into the San Gabriel mountains. I actually like the stains . . . makes it a look a tiny bit more authentic.

So what I did was, basically I wetted it down, popped out the stupid bash, and peeled back enough of the liner to fit my hand inside so I could use my fingers on both sides to smooth out the original creases. I let it dry for an hour or so and then started working that thang. It took a while and more re-wetting to kind of pull the crown up some, add a little height to it... It was actually very difficult! Felt like a taffy pull from time to time.

It is obvious as you work with this material what cheap, crummy felt this is. And it won't take another round of this wetting/stretching deal; the surface was pilling up a little bit. But after it dried overnight I brushed it and tweaked the pinch, and it's as far as it can go, I think, to looking like an "Indy hat" should. I was worried, after reading many warnings, about tackling this but heck, I got this already cheap hat at a 35% discount, so whatever, it's not even worth worrying about. If I wrecked it... well I'd just have to order that Fed IV before I'd saved up enough money. The wife would understand. Yeah yeah sure . . . that's the ticket.

My verdict overall? Well, it's . . . an improvement. About all that can be expected of a hat that is so far away from a SA "Indy hat" in the first place. At least instead of not even being in the same hemisphere as a proper "Indy hat" it looks a teeny bit more like -- maybe a Temple hat.

Don't get me wrong -- it is still not even close. Just an improvement. I pondered replacing the ribbon but really this hat is not worth putting one more cent or hour's worth of work into, IMHO. Any money I would spend on a ribbon goes into my little can of savings for a Fed IV (and later for an AB, but that might take years . . .) contributions welcome LOL!

Just for a before-and-after comparison -- here's a shot from my hike last weekend to the Mt. Vetter fire lookout. I'd say this still-quite-imperfect hat is much improved.

wow you did quite a good job , i destroyed my DP trying to get it to no longer have that tear dent. needless to say it ended up in the trash bin.

okayletsrock wrote:wow you did quite a good job , i destroyed my DP trying to get it to no longer have that tear dent. needless to say it ended up in the trash bin.

Thanks man -- it is definitely in the category of "lipstick on a pig" but I do think it is much improved. As a bonus all the massaging of the hat stretched it a bit so it is a little more comfy on my head. And I have worked the center dent some more. It is still a little lumpy but no lumpier than Ford's in some of the Temple scenes. It is still in a whole other universe than a proper Indy hat though, of course. It's made me want my Fed IV (so I can start saving for an AB) all the more.

Anyway thanks for the compliment -- there were a lot of views but a deafening silence so I was worried folks felt that it looked crummy so I appreciate the kind words!

i know what u mean by needing to get another lid. after i binned mine i got lucky enough to get a JPD rabbit from raging blues. think it was probably no more than a few weeks lol.

Up until now I was one of the people guilty of reading the thread but not posting in it. The reason is that I don't know what to say realy.

In all fairness I must say that I'm not exactly blown away by how the hat looks, but at the same time I'm amazed at the improvement your re-bash is. I'd like to see you bash a more acurate hat.

Regards, Geert

gwyddion wrote: In all fairness I must say that I'm not exactly blown away by how the hat looks, but at the same time I'm amazed at the improvement your re-bash is.

Ha! That's kind of what I figured, it is nothing to write home about! While I'm not amazed (I really appreciate the compliment). I also am not blown away by how the hat looks. In fact I don't think it's possible to get there with one of these crappy wool jobs. If I had known when I bought it how impossible it was to try to rebash, I would have saved the money almost enough set aside by now to get my Fed IV. But I would have been hatless for tw months or more as well. Oh well.

I am interested to see the photos from another member's wool-resuscitation effort:
http://indygear.com/cow/viewtopic.php?t=32856

Though he's investing n a new ribbon and putting more effort into it than this hat is worth for me, if he has better results and some new tricks to try I might tweak it some more.

I think it is worth it to post this stuff here because let's face it, a lot of people are just getting into this with very very limited $ to spend, and while unfortunately the "official" Indy hat is a complete joke it is really really cheap and not bad-looking on its own terms -- just nothing like the hat Indy wears.

When folks say stuff like "just spend the extra $50 on a XYZ hat" iit sometimes grates on me. I don't think they realize that is simply not a reality for many people. Sometimes people have $50 max to spare and that is all for a while, and $150 with shipping for s superior hat takes a back seat. Very far in the back.

So I think it is useful to have some info for the super-low-budget folks to improve their hat experience whilst they take the knowledge they can find here and save their shekels to upgrade.

Thanks for the comment. I also can't wait to bash a real hat!

I totaly agree and I think the lack of money to buy annything more than a 50$ hat is especialy true for kids. I think it is a great idea to start up a thread with improved upon DP hats for the super-low-budget people out here. this way they can see that eventhough the DP is far from perfect, it can be improved upon.

Regards, Geert