I want to make this cowboy hat into an Open Road style fedora. This is going to be my working hat, to keep from getting my vintage 3Xbeaver OR all sweaty. This started out as a 4X Stetson Paisano in silver belly and the sweatband was just glued in. I don't know what happened to it, but I guess I won't feel guilty cutting it up. That's what I want it to look like.
So after checking the electrical out, I decided to plug in my new hat mold. It heated up and worked fine, so I misted the inside of the hat and tried it out. I ended up not using my steamer. I ironed it out to a open crown and cut 1" off the brim. I still have to flange the brim, and I plan to make a new sweatband.
There's a place in the brim that I am concerned about, so I am going to swap the back to the front. I actually got mixed up on which end is which after I took the sweatband out. It doesn't really matter at that point though. This hat block has a little more taper to one end, I consider that the front. I really didn't notice until I shaped the hat to it and later realized it only fit in one direction. So I am going to redo it in the other direction to move the stressed looking section of the brim to the back.
I tried to make a new sweatband, but I'm struggling to get it in...I started over and I think it will be ok. I'm working on the brim now.
I haven't gotten the brim like I want yet, but it's in a decent enough shape not to really worry about it. I don't think I am going to put a liner back in, so that it'll be a little cooler.
Open Roads have come with several different brim lengths over the years. Most are 2 3/4", I made this one just under 3" for a little more shade.
I've been working on the brim this morning, I finally got it where it will snap now. This is going to be one of my work hats when I'm not wearing straw in the warmer months.
The brim ended up losing the snap, so I stiffened it with some hairspray. The lady at the store asked my girlfriend if she liked that hairspray. She said I don't know, it's for my boyfriend. I sprayed the brim, top and bottom, then let it dry for a while. After that I steamed the brim and used a bucket to get the shape that I wanted. I left it on the bucket overnight, hopefully the brim stays. It snaps hard now.
This one is a bit of a mystery. The box doesn't match the hat. It was advertised as a 59 cognac Open Road, which I knew it wasn't from the pics. It's similar to a whippet. It may be a Chatham.
I took a gamble on this older 7X Serratelli. It cleaned up really well and is super nice. I steamed it to a open crown and wore it to some friends' house for supper last night. I've got to get some new pictures, it's raining right now.
I left it as an open crown to start with and it didn't look bad. My buddy said something about me needing to put some shape to it. I started off just lowering the crown to a gambler style stove pipe, then it started to teardrop so I helped it out and lowered the rear more to give it some swoop. My buddy was surprised that I did it without steam. I took out the liner and changed the band, but the band wasn't original to start with.
That Serratelli really is a nice hat. Compare how smooth and wrinkle free that teardrop is to the diamond crease in this 3X Beaver Resistol.
This is my 3X Beaver Open Road. I haven't steamed it at all, I've been wearing it with a center dent. And here's my 4X Tony Llama project.
I think I'm going to give this Bailey to my neighbor. I went over this morning to talk about a stray dog and he said he liked my hat (the Serratelli). He said he liked how it wasn't real tall, so I think he will like this one. I got it for a $25 offer on eBay. It turned out to be wool, even though it says genuine fur felt. It's still a nice hat that sells for over $100, wool just doesn't reshape well.
