The Trials and Tribulations of Hat Stiffener

[RJR]

Good information.

 

[Doc Glockster]

It's been off-and-on rainy-drippy overcast all morning, so I've been bored inside the house.

I decided to tweak the brim shape of my hat a little.

I wet the brim enough to reshape it. The brim reshaped nicely and easily with a little wetness. As stiff as the brim is I only had to wet the top. I kind of did this on purpose to leave the underside of the brim dry as a "control" to see if re-wetting a hat stiffened with Zinsser's will turn the hat white where I wet it or cause other issues.

I'll report back if anything worthy of note happens.

 

[Doc Glockster]

As the hat dries I've noticed a few water marks appearing where the water skittered across the brim and didn't soak in.

I can't do anything until the hat dries, but when It does I'll hit it with another coat of the shellac. I expect the water marks to disappear just like the first time I treated the hat.

I'll let you know if another treatment doesn't get rid of these marks, but, again, I can't do anything until the hat fully dries.

 

[pjt113]

I'm late to this thread, but I've used dollar store hair spray and it's worked well for me

 

[Doc Glockster]

I forgot to mention: as the hat dries the stiffness remains. Evidently if you put enough of the Bullseye shellac on it the stiffness is not affected even if the hat gets wet. That's good news for wearing it in the rain.

Once it's dry, if all's well and any issues can be fixed by simply applying another coat of shellac then I probably won't add another reply to this thread on the re-wetting subject. I water-logged the brim pretty good so it may take most of the weekend to dry fully.

 

[Fed in a Fedora]

I just returned from New Orleans where a lot of the 1812 reenactors had custom shaped their felt hats. Zinsser's was the choice product for setting the desired shape into hats which are correctly stiff in design. The final stiffness can be adjusted by the amount applied and care used in applying.

Fed

 

[Doc Glockster]

I just returned from New Orleans where a lot of the 1812 reenactors had custom shaped their felt hats. Zinsser's was the choice product for setting the desired shape into hats which are correctly stiff in design. The final stiffness can be adjusted by the amount applied and care used in applying.

Fed

I boldfaced and underlined part of your quote: that's a good way to put it.

If you put enough of the product on the hat, it will remain wet long enough to allow you to make final adjustments.

As with any spray product, good technique involves several small coats instead of one heavy coat. I found that on my hat, just a couple of passes "misting" the hat restored the stiffness to where I wanted it.

 

[moehawk]

I have found that spraying a very stiff shellacked hat with rubbing alcohol will soften the shellac enough to adjust the shape, it dries quickly if you use the 91 percent stuff, and as alcohol is shellac's solvent, will not lessen it's stiffening ability when it dries.

Just my $.02 worth...

 

[Doc Glockster]

I have found that spraying a very stiff shellacked hat with rubbing alcohol will soften the shellac enough to adjust the shape, it dries quickly if you use the 91 percent stuff, and as alcohol is shellac's solvent, will not lessen it's stiffening ability when it dries.

Just my $.02 worth...

This brings up a good question: should a person accidentally put a small stain in the hat with the shellac, would the rubbing alcohol remove that stain and allow you to recoat the area for an even finish?

 

[moehawk]

Well, I do know that recently I was working on a hat that had a couple of small oily stains on the crown just over where the band might cover. I tried the naptha spot cleaning method with Ronsonol fluid. It lightened the stain but made it larger. I think it just diffused it a bit., I then sprayed the whole crown with the 91% rubbing alcohol fairly heavily and it diffused the whole stain to the point where it was not detectable. So, I imagine that it might well do the trick.

 

[WesternHatWearer]

I went to my local western store and spoke with the gentleman that works in the hat room, he pulled out a one gallon jug of stiffener. The stiffener was by a company named M&F Western. He said the cost of the gallon was $80 plus shipping. I mentioned some other stiffener to him; he said that he did not like the results when using other stiffeners.
I am sharing what I have heard since last posting here. I have not yet acquired any M&F Western stiffener, so I cannot speak to the effectiveness of their product.

 

[WesternHatWearer]

I purchased a gallon of M&F Stiffener. I will be trying it out tomorrow on a Resistol 6X City Limits that is a bit pliable. I will update after I have used the product and allowed time to dry.

2145 or 9:45pm
First coat of stiffener results: Only slightly stiffer overall. The area still needing more stiffener is along the areas where the brim curls upward.

 

[WesternHatWearer]

A second application of stiffener, I am using M&F's stiffener, has returned my hat to the original stiffness it had when I purchased it.
I was pleased to see that stiffener worked as well as it did.
I will be honest, the cost of the stiffener was $80 for a gallon. Otherwise I would be paying $10 per stiffening at the local hatter. The upfront cost was a better deal over the long term, so I purchased the stiffener for myself.

I hope this helps.

 

[gtdean48]

How much of the gallon did the 2 applications consume?

 

[WesternHatWearer]

How much of the gallon did the 2 applications consume?

Approximately 2-3 ounces.

 

[Doc Glockster]

UPDATE:

I got a little overzealous with the shellac on a "beater" black cowboy hat this weekend. Unfortunately the shellac gave the hat somewhat of a "sparkly" look that wasn't apparent on a light colored had. I was able to brush out the sparkliness, but that undid the stiffening too.

So I'm looking for a way around this now.

I think if I'd followed sound technique a little better with light coats I'd have been okay, but I thought I'd post this as a warning that even though it's a black hat you can still put too much and create an effect you don't want.

I used the shellac on another black hat with proper technique and the hat looks great.

 

[Doc Glockster]

Doing some experimentation, I noticed that steaming a hat's brim after treating it with the shellac tends to "set" the shellac and gives a really stiff brim.

If you start with a totally dry hat and just "dust" it with a fine spray of the shellac, you probably won't need to steam it, but a hat that has lost most of its stiffness and requires several coats of shellac will probably need to be steamed in order to "set" the shellac and get the really firm stiffness.

 

[Lance Brown]

...These days they use a synthetic resin. While old fashioned shellac would certainly work since that's what they used in the pre-plastics era, I would suggest buying something like Kahl hat stiffener, which is one of the modern resins. One nice thing about it is that its effect is rather mild. You can keep going to get more and more stiffness but you won't face the problem of applying it once and having a helmet on your hands. I think there are other comparable brands. Kahl is the only one I've used and I've used it successfully on both straw and felt.[/QUOTE]
I was at Dirty Billy's in Gettysburg, PA and he uses shellac per his wife. I have a hat I made from a blank and thisi s my last step. Needless to say I have been hesitant before proceding

 

[moehawk]

I've used shellac (Zissner's wax-free sanding sealer to be exact) diluted with alcohol (10 parts alcohol to 1 part shellac) in a pump spray bottle with good results. I dilute the shellac this much to avoid the accidental overstiffening.

 

[viclip]

Just a reminder that off-the-shelf shellac comes in 2 hues. There's orange shellac as well as clear shellac (somewhat yellowish). The former would be less likely to change the color of a brown hat whereas the clear version would be better for other colors.