"& Such" post; Leather Hat

kimsalls

kimsalls

Joined
Mar 24, 2005
Messages
540
I wanted to share the hat I just completed. It ended up a lot more rustic than I intended, but I am pretty happy with my first try. I adapted a Tandy hat pattern for a Top Hat. My intention was a compact, smaller brimmed, Clint Eastwood-like cowboy style hat. Happy to have questions or comments.






 
Strigamort said:
Did you have anything that in it to stiffen it (cardboard, plastic, etc) or is it all leather and thread?
Click to expand...

I had the same question before I started. The brim is two pieces of 4oz leather glued together. It is plenty stiff. The brim is pretty narrow, but I think you would have to go pretty wide before needing plastic to stiffen.

Registering the two brim pieces was by far the hardest part of this project. The inside part where the stitching is has no glue. On my second attempt I spread the glue on two square pieces and left the center part without glue. I cut out the brims after it was glued and the glue had set.
 
What a pun! Head knife in a hat! Good job on the leather work. I could see where that would be a project. Like the Rose knife too, sucker for cool tools.
 
Thanks for explaining that. Makes sense. I glued two pieces of 4oz together the other day (flesh to flesh) and it was far more stiff than a single thickness of 8oz.

I can't remember if it was here or another forum but someone was saying that saddle makers use the technique to reduce stretching that might occur on a single thickness.

Maybe one day if I have time I'll give it a shot. Thanks for sharing. :)
 
I too have always been fascinated by that "ring". I have 6 round knives out in the shop currently. I went out to check and five will make that ring tapped on the tooling stone the other did not. Years ago I was told that was a sign of quality, that it indicated a forged knife over one that wasn't. Now the interesting part is 4 of my 6 knives are Osborne and yep you guessed it 3 ring and one doesn't. The roundknife I made with stock removal methods rings like a bell. Go figure.
 
Is it specific to the shape? I always loved the ringing (more like singing) that some knives have when using a stone to sharpen. I always thought it might have something to do with hardness. I have a custom (high hardness) kitchen knife that rings and sings, my factory kitchen knives don't.

I won't pretend to know anything about harmonics, definitely interesting though.
 
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