Wrangling the Horse

This may not be an interesting post to anyone but myself and a few people from The Fedora Lounge but with my growing interests in hats I have been looking for another project to try out.   I've been  learning about the types of felt, the process of making, blocking, pouncing, sewing and creasing them and their anatomy and styles (Homburgs, Bowlers, Fedoras, Pork Pies, Boaters, Panamas, etc).  I am not ready to invest in a whole whack of expensive hat-making equipment so I was looking for an inexpensive way I could get my hands busy with something to wear at the end of the project.

There is a thread at the Lounge called "The Conversion Corral" where people take good quality cowboy hats (which can be had for a song) and turn them into fedoras (which can be expensive to find good quality hats in large sizes - 7 1/2 for me).   So I found this brand new 7X Western hat on ebay selling for 70% off.  Sweet!  I chose it not only for it's good price and quality felt but also because it has a fedora-like bow on it already so I wouldn't have to deal with switching it out.  I also liked it because it was made by the Canadian hat maker Biltmore who "were" reputed to produce one of the finest production hats lately (as opposed to custom hat makers).  "Were" because they sold the name and another company down in Texas and are now producing hats down there that are not quite the same quality.

They were in business since 1917 but closed their Guelph factory.
Anyway, here's the process:

I started out with this silverbelly coloured hat and ditched the horseshoe pin.

Took Laura's stitch ripper and removed the binding.  I wanted to keep it and sew it back on to retain the nice bound edge but I got overzealous and ended up putting the blade through the ribbon at two different places.

With a towel between the hat and iron, I ironed out the cowboy swoop to the brim.

I cut out a 3 inch guide made of cardboard and marked spots all around the brim.  Most of my hats brim's are around 2 1/2 to 2 3/4 inches but I went bigger to see how it goes.  You can always take more off but not put it back on.

This was the moment I was waiting for.  I wanted to see how it felt to cut felt.  The answer was - a bit nerve wracking.

I took off half an inch which left me with a jagged edge.

I sanded down the uneven spots with 320 grit sandpaper.  I stopped there just in case I wanted to cut the brim smaller but what I've read was hatmakers use up to 600 grit and some even higher.  Looks fine to me stopping at 320.

So with a bit of steam I deepened the front pinch and curled up the brim at the back.  I may put even more of a curl.  Cowboy hats have a lot more starch in their brims than dress fedoras so I may have to really work to get more curl.  Anyway here is the final product.

So whadaya think?  Another inexpensive and fun project finished in a day or two.  If you made it this far, thanks for reading.