Club Obi Wan

Hello Everyone,

It has been a long time since I have been here to the C.O.W. Forum.
I have been a little busy for a few years, family and health issues.
Any way I purchased an Adventure Built Hat back in late 2006 and
received it early 2007. I have never worn my hat other than trying
it on, I keep it stored in a hat box. I know your gonna ask why, well
I just don't want anything to happen to it.

I have also made a few hats, I made a new hat about 6 months ago,
it has a leather hat band and a 3.25" brim, not a Indy style.
I am thinking about making another, my next hat might just be
a lite grey with a black grosgrain, black leather sweat band, white silk
liner. I may go with a medium grey hat color, not sure which would
be the best choice.
I thought that I might post photos of my hats, looking for a little feed
back on my work. I know my crown height isn't high enough for a Indy
so I need to fix my home made blocking pieces by adding a 1" thick piece
of wood to the base of the block.

Thank you for your time and help,
Darrell

Looks good to me! And it's fun, isn't it? Playing with hats is a very "Zen" activity, during which you're so focused on the felt that the rest of the world kind of fades away for a while. I find it relaxing.

Are you starting with and re-blocking an existing finished hat? Or are you starting with a raw hat body?

Hi Howard,

I haven't done any reblocks, every hat that I have made starts with a rabbit fur
felt hat body plus all of the other pieces needed to make the hat. Normally I
order from hatsupply , I get sandpaper from auto parts stores, normally a
good place to find the fine sandpaper. I plan to buy some wood from home
depot to fix my hat block and make something that I can use to flatten or
help when shaping the brim.
So far every hat that I have made has been a large or 7 3/8's.

Darrell

Looks like a fun hobby. There was a time, I would take certain types of western hats and cut the brim and reshape into western/fedora styles.

Nice job, I'm not hatter and I can totally understand the need to protect the Adventurebilt.
Is it rabbit or beaver.
I have one in beaver, and it can take it.

But back to your hat, has a nice Man with no Name look to it.
I Like it.

Croft

You made that hat? Wow! That's so cool! I thought it was an Akubra! Nice work!

My Adventure Built Hat is rabbit fur, it is a high quality hat.
The surface is smooth to the touch.
Today I took a picture of my Adventure Built Hat next to the
hat that I made and I can see that I need to do a bit of sanding
and try to smooth the surface. It will take a little weight off of
it too.
Well I tried to find the pictures that I made but so far I haven't
found them. I am using a kindle to take pictures and upload
and post messages, I guess that I should use something different
it seems that kindle puts pictures where it decides to store them.
I checked the crown height and the two hats are almost the same
height.
Maybe I will be able to upload the photos later after I find them?

Thank you all for all the positive replies guess I am doing a little
better than I thought. I will do some sanding the post some updated
photos, providing I am able to find where kindle is hiding them??

Darrell4926 wrote:Hi Howard,

I haven't done any reblocks, every hat that I have made starts with a rabbit fur
felt hat body plus all of the other pieces needed to make the hat. Normally I
order from hatsupply , I get sandpaper from auto parts stores, normally a
good place to find the fine sandpaper. I plan to buy some wood from home
depot to fix my hat block and make something that I can use to flatten or
help when shaping the brim.

Darrell

Darrell: Wow -- now I'm even MORE impressed!
How did you learn to put the components together -- trial and error?

Howard

Well I actually got the bug for making hats on this forum.
I read just about every post made by Steve if he posted
a photo of a Fedora worn in the movie or a hat that he was working
on I downloaded the image, I did a lot of copy and paste
into Microsoft Word 2003. I also purchased a book on hat making,
and purchased about 4 hat brim blocks off of Ebay , old antiques
dating back to 1935.
I also ask Marc a lot of questions on hat making, Marc and Steve
pay attention to every detail.
I have a large collection of information on making hats from a lot of
Research and I am still learning.

I thought that I would try my hand at a grey Fedora style hat and I
have been looking at lite grey, dark grey and medium grey fur felts,
Black Grosgrain, not sure about a color for a wreath and or a liner
color???

Well I have been away for a long time, there is a lot to catch up on.
I was just reading about the Federation IV, that is a high crown.
I was a bit surprised when I read about the hats being sold with
open crowns, but that is a good ideal, the customer gets to bash
It the way he wants to. I am going to try for a higher crown on
the grey Fedora, 5 5/8's, white silk liner, Brown sweatband, black
Grosgrain ribbon, hope I can get this hat right??
The rabbit fur felt is a dark grey.