Hat cleaning and blocking

[Long John Tinfoil]

Here's an article from today's Toronto Star. I don't know how long the link will be good, so I'm copying the text in for later.

LJ



TOPPING TRADE

TheStar.com | GTA | Store owner a chip off the old (hat) block

Store owner a chip off the old (hat) block

TORONTO STAR

George Catleugh still uses his father’s equipment — a brim press, wooden moulds and flanges, heated sandbags and a hand-held iron — to clean and block hats at his Avenue Rd. store. Catleugh believes he is Canada’s last professional hat-blocker. (Dec. 29, 2008)

After more than 70 years in the hat-blocking trade, Toronto's The Hatter still does brisk business
Jan 07, 2009 04:30 AM
Megan Ogilvie
STAFF REPORTER

Some might say George Catleugh practises a lost art, or praise him for keeping a Toronto tradition alive.

But the man himself – a genial straight-talker with a quick grin and cheerful voice – describes his work as a trade.

"We provide a service," Catleugh says simply. It's one his family has offered for more than 70 years.

Catleugh believes he is the only remaining professional hat blocker in Canada. The proprietor of The Hatter, a small shop tucked into a line of stores on Avenue Rd., north of Lawrence Ave. W., cleans and blocks hats, just the way his father did back when every well-dressed gentleman wore a well-pressed hat.

"We're the only one doing it," he says. "In the whole country. If there is somebody else out there doing it, I'd like to know who they are."

Catleugh's father, George Catleugh Sr., started his hat-blocking business in 1936, at the corner of Bathurst and Dupont Sts., and called it Hat Service. The combination of cleaning, pressing and reshaping hats proved successful through the 1940s and '50s and into the early '60s.

"In the heydays, they were doing 500, 600 hats a day," Catleugh says. "There was a crew of guys working and all they did was clean and block hats."

In 1971, the shop moved north to its current location and was renamed The Hatter. Catleugh Sr. started to sell hats at the front of the store and moved the blocking equipment to the back room.

"In the early days, my dad didn't sell hats," Catleugh recalls. "There wasn't a selection. There was one basic hat and it came in four colours – brown, grey, black and blue.

"When he came here, the blocking was dropping off like a stone, but hat sales were starting to go up. The business had to change."

Today, Catleugh takes in hats from all over Canada.

"Stuff is coming in and out all the time," he says. "From Vancouver to Ottawa. You name it, and we'll have got a hat from it.

"I get around 100 or 120 hats to block a month, which is pretty good, especially in this throwaway world we live in."

At the back of the store, freshly blocked hats are hooked on a rack to dry. There are fedoras, bucket hats, multicoloured wool caps, several straw hats, two westerns, and even a cleaned-up baseball cap.

All of them now are – almost – as good as new, says Catleugh.

"They're out of shape when they get here," he says. "They're full of grease, from perspiration or sometimes makeup or whatever people put in their hair."

Catleugh, 62, cleans and blocks hats the way his father did, and uses all the same equipment. Catleugh Sr., who is 87, comes in from time to time to check on things.

"He has to," says Catleugh, noting that his father still wears a hat, often on a jaunty angle, when he goes out. "It's all he did in his life."

Each hat is cleaned by hand with a brush and special solution. After letting it dry for 24 hours, Catleugh starts the blocking process.

First, he finds the appropriate block for the hat. The wooden mould is used to reshape the crown of the hat. Next, he will press the brim with the help of a flange – another wooden circular mould that gives the hat brim its smooth curve. Antiquated steamers force the fabric around the wood at each stage. Catleugh uses a hand-held iron to smooth any remaining wrinkles.

Finally, he uses a 59-kilogram heated sandbag, what he calls his heated flange, to further press the hat and to wick away any moisture.

Cleaning and blocking will cost a customer $15 to $30. The wider the brim, the higher the cost, says Catleugh. Catleugh says men of all ages still buy hats, from wool caps to fedoras to the narrow-brimmed bowler.

When he is finished with the blocking trade, Catleugh anticipates someone will come along to buy the family business and learn from his skill.

"People wear hats," he grins. "Especially those who are, like me, follicularly challenged."

And people who wear hats, he adds, especially hats with a hefty price tag, will want them cleaned.

"You can make a living. That's really what it is, a living."

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/562783

[Piker]

Can I post this on or better yet, why don't you join

www.thefedorachronicles.com

and post this in the "lids" section?

[Long John Tinfoil]

Go ahead. I presume it's OK to post things on so long as there is an attribution to the original source.

LJ