Club Obi Wan

I ordered a Fed IV Deluxe from The Hattery, down under. Arrived very quickly. Great color. Very nice.

I just took it out of the box, and it fell down on my ears. There was a foam strip wrapped around the outside ribbon in the box. I trimmed a bit of it off, and it actually fits inside the leather headband and sizes the hat just about right.

This is my first Fed IV. What is your experience with that particular hat shrinking over time? I can order a smaller size right away or soldier on.

Thanks in advance.

Interested in the responses, myself, since I'm close to pulling the trigger on one.

I don't have experience with the Fed IV, but plenty with the Fed III. Based on those, I'd say that smaller might be unwise in your case. With an Akubra, if the foam tape makes it fit right, the hat will probably shrink down to that fit after regular use. But, if it's still too big with the tape, you might need to trade down.

If you wear your hat enough the sweat will gradually shrink and begin to conform to your head as long as it's not TOO big. If you're just the occasional poser, I recommend getting a size down.

I'm between a 7 and a 7 1/8 so when it comes to the Akubra Fed I always order a 7 1/8. I have to use the foam tape inside the sweatband but it worked with no problems.

This was 6 years ago. About 3 years ago, I had to take all the foam out and the hat fit perfectly.

This year, I had to buy a hat stretcher to make sure the thing would still fit and not be too tight.

And this is a hat that I've literally beat the ever living life out of.

If the foam tape is working for you right now, then I think you'll be fine for awhile.

When buy any hat custom or off the rack it is always best to give your exact measurements to that person or company. Let them size you to there hats. no company I have seen has a accurate hat size chart, so they aren't helpful. Also factory made hats sometimes aren't what they are labeled as.

My Fed III fit great when I got it, but it shrunk and is too tight now. So, just keep the foam tape in until you don't need it.

I usually wear a 56, but Akubras run big, so I got a 55. Ended up being a big mistake after about a year's worth of wear.

BendingOak wrote:When buy any hat custom or off the rack it is always best to give your exact measurements to that person or company. Let them size you to there hats. no company I have seen has a accurate hat size chart, so they aren't helpful. Also factory made hats sometimes aren't what they are labeled as.

Always follow what this guy says about hats.

I've actually just gone through an emotional rollercoaster of buying a Fed IV, and I had a similar initial reaction to you. It felt WAAY too big, despite me having sent them my measurements.

Now, I had heard that they do shrink over time, but this felt like it had a looooong way to go. I did express my concerns to Hatsdirect, and they basically said I should bash it and wear it a bit and it will shrink. I did that, and STILL felt it was too big. At which point it was - of course - no longer exchangeable. Frustrating.

Then, in another similar thread to this one, another user (anindyjones) suggested wetting the sweat band and the outside around the sweat band, and letting it dry in a room with a space heater. Now, normally I never dry ANYTHING near a heater, it isn't super healthy for clothes/shoes/hats. The reason it's bad, however, is that it shrinks things, so figuring that I didn't have that much to lose, I tried it.

Now, I'm happy to say that the hat fits much better (with still a bit of foam, which is nice knowing I can pull that out if it shrinks further) and the bash actually looks better, in my opinion.

Of course, all this is "at your own risk" and "your results may vary", but that was my experience. Admittedly I've only done this recently, so who knows what the effect will be on the lifespan of the hat. But I also figured there was no point in having a hat last forever if I wasn't happy wearing it. Good luck!

EDIT: I just wanted to add that this method is probably best reserved for hats that are WAAAY too big. Mine was fully padded, and my hair was much longer/thicker than usual and it still was sliding down over my ears. If there's just a bit of space I think you're better to "wear and wait".

I'm with the "wear it for a while" crowd. Especially since it's warm weather now (unless you're in Southern Hemisphere winter), the general consensus seems to be that sweating helps shrink the sweat band. So wear it a lot on warm days and see what happens before trying anything drastic.

I have 3 Fed IVs (standard, not deluxe), but they're in rotation with a dozen other hats. Since I don't wear any of them terribly often, none of my Feds have shrunk much...yet. The foam padding inside the sweatband makes them fit well, so I'm not complaining.

I wear a 58, so these Feds are all 59. After the first 2, I was tempted to order a 58 for the 3rd, to see how it fit. But I stuck with another 59.

I live in muggy FL. I sweat A LOT in my hats. I vacationed in NY. Same hat different weather. The hat was made to fit according to specs. Definitely fits snugger in FL due to weather and how it affects the slight swelling of the body here.
In NY it fit slightly less snug.

Hats are dynamic. At least with mine, depending on the weather it fit is variable.

They may have factor in on how much their sweatbands shrink. Federations are good hats for what you pay. You can't expect high end quality out of it. Those sweatbands are going to shrink, sound advise to stuff it, wear it, factor in shrinking a lot, and hopefully it will work.

Gentlemen:

I am most appreciative of your counsel.

I did some additional testing. Even with the foam in, I went out into the wind and couldn't keep the hat on my head. I'm going to order one size down and compare them before I make a permanent decision.

I'm about to go out to Utah and spend some time in Arches National Park where the opening scenes of LC were filmed. The whole purpose of getting the Fed IV was to beat it up and keep my pre-KotCS AB in pristine condition.

Thank you all for taking the time to respond.