Club Obi Wan

I've seen this done a few times before, where one has had an old hat or a cowboy hat or something inexpensive from the store and then converted it to an "indy-like" hat.

I'd like to see if anyone has examples of doing this kind of thing, so I'll start by sharing my own.

This was an old, stiff, generic fedora with a leather "ribbon". It came out of someone's closet and they just gave it to me, all brim-warped and with a haphazard bash. Unfortunately, I didn't take before pictures, but you can imagine.

It had an unbound brim, and at first I thought it was fur felt... however it didn't feel the same at all. I looked at the tag, and sure enough "100% Wool". Ugh. I don't particularly like wool hats, a sentiment shared by most serious hat-wearers, but I felt that in the absence of my fur felt hat, this would have to do.

I don't have blocking supplies yet, so I set about this in the crudest way: wetting it and reshaping so it would be in a different shape when dry. I wasn't worried about it shrinking too much, as it was a size too large anyways.

This is the result. I know it's not a true Indy fedora by any stretch of the imagination, but as I've gotten accustomed to the overall look of that kind of hat, so...










Has anyone else converted a different hat before?

Nice job on reforming the hat.

I did a search for 'conversion' in the Fedora section and found these threads

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=46186&hilit=conversion" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=41690&hilit=conversion" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=43262&hilit=conversion" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://indygear.com/cow/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=41697" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Regards,

Indiana Jeff

Very impressed with your work on this one Geno

regards Stones

I've seen a lot of conversions done in TheFedoraLounge. The thread is called "The Conversion Corral" and features members' attempts at converting a western hat into a fedora.

I did some more work, including lessening the tightness of the front crease and giving a bit of brim curl a la LC. I also made a new ribbon for it out of Walmart grosgrain ribbon.

Here's a pic of the hat on my head, overall a good non-indy fedora to hold me over until my reblock arrives. At any rate, it's the best non-fur hat I own currently.

The fur hats I currently own are an old Derby and my Indy fedora