Shaping a felt cowboy hat is more simple than you think and can be done from home. All you need is an iron for steam, some sort of ball that can be used for shaping, some packaging tape for cleaning, and hat stiffener.
Step One Cleaning:
When you shape a cowboy hat or a felt hat, it is important to clean it first. You can do this with a lint roller, or by using the sticky side of packaging tape.
If you don't clean the hat, the felt harder will be ineffective because the dust and dirt will simply get stuck inside the felt fibers.
Step Two Spray the Hat with Felt Stiffener:
Next you will need to prepare the felt with hat stiffener. Do not use Starch or Hairspray. Starch or Hairspray will eventually flake or cause yellowing and discoloration. I use Bickmore Kahl Hat Stiffener, it's cheap, and gets the job done well amzn.to/2MYHXsa
You will need to apply liberal amounts and essentially soak the hat with stiffener.
Step 3 Let the hat dry completely.
Step Four Three Return the Hat to it's original state:
Cowboy hats and other felt hats have a natural form. A cowboy hat would have looked like a slouch hat prior to being molded to the shape it came in. This means that the crown needs to be stretched out into a dome shape and the brim flattened. To do this make sure you use steam. Steam will cause the stiffener you sprayed on the hat to begin to help you form the hat. It also allows the felt to properly stretch and mold. You will need a way to stretch the felt and pull out the wrinkles in the hat. I used a slightly deflated small soccer ball to fit inside the crown of the hat. The ball gave me enough resistance to pull and stretch the felt of the crown smooth again.
Step Five Reshape:
Once you have removed all the wrinkles in the hat, you may now begin reshaping the hat. In this video I did a tear drop crown, which is typical of a roper style cowboy hat.
While reshaping your hat remember to always steam first, then shape, then spray stiffener and let it dry for a few moments.
The key to reshaping the hat is to pull off one shape at a time, then once it has held a dried, start the next shape shape.
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16 сен 2024
