Fur felt types?

The velour and other furry finishes can be achieved with any fur; after the hat body is felted, the nap is intentionally raised and then trimmed back
tight-suede
hardly trimmed - peluche (furry)
in between the two above - velvet
Other terms were used to describe various degrees of the above; Borsalino had a peach finish, some others referred to a casmere.

I remember from a previous discussion of this topic that the nutria made a generally stiffer felt, and was therefore more likely to be used for a working cowboy's hat than for a fedora buyer that might prefer 'buttery soft' felt (BEAVER!). Maybe it was Major Moore that told me that instead of seeing it in a previous thread. Too much scotch . . .

warbird said:

I believe some are still using nutria and they should use it a lot more. There millions of those pesky little fur balls creating havoc on the gulf.

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I agree, nutria should be used a lot more. They were brought to Louisiana in the fur trade and were let loose in a hurricane. They have no natural predators and wreck wetlands. They serve no purpose but to be used for their furs.

I have to say that some of the information I've learned in this thread has allowed me to do some research, and I'm now not nearly so ambivalent about getting an Akubra. From what I've read there's definitely a difference between the happy fuzzballs who ate lettuce in my laundry baskets and the amok pests of the land down under; I also found at least two articles that mentioned Akubra tending to use wild, hunted rabbit, as opposed to bred rabbit, which further assuaged my ambivalence.

While we're on the topic, I don't suppose it'd be inappropriate to ask if Akubra makes any hats that are year-round wearable? I'm talking comfy in triple digits here.

barrowjh said:

I remember from a previous discussion of this topic that the nutria made a generally stiffer felt, and was therefore more likely to be used for a working cowboy's hat than for a fedora buyer that might prefer 'buttery soft' felt (BEAVER!).

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The 1940's "real nutria" (which is NOT "clear nutria" then...) hat I have is not "buttery soft", but neither is my Stetson 100 which, unless I am mistaken, would have a (very) high beaver fur content.
Quite frankly, "buttery soft" may not be the best terms in which to qualify felt...forget the butter, I say!

And "soft" might only apply to the "surface feel". Because the Stetson 100 is anything but soft as regards the general structural feel of the felt: it is rather firm! Not in the sense of "stiffener firm", but...pliable, malleable. Not soft. The shape you give it stays firmly put! Any shape you give it stays firmly put. That is even more easily the case for my nutria hat, which is spectacularly easy to (re-)shape, but whereof the surface feel is slightly less soft (velvety) as my 100 or even 20.

I realize we are trying to convey physical characteristics with words. Much like poetry; most of it...bad. lol

MisterGrey said:

While we're on the topic, I don't suppose it'd be inappropriate to ask if Akubra makes any hats that are year-round wearable? I'm talking comfy in triple digits here.

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Their unlined fur-felt hats with ventilation holes from the Country line are surprisingly comfortable in the heat. (After all, they're made to be worn by folks in the blistering heat of the Australian Outback.) I have a Cattleman, and it has proven to be equally (un)comfortable to my panama hats in the summer heat/humidity - and much tougher.

barrowjh said:

The velour and other furry finishes can be achieved with any fur; after the hat body is felted, the nap is intentionally raised and then trimmed back
tight-suede
hardly trimmed - peluche (furry)
in between the two above - velvet
Other terms were used to describe various degrees of the above; Borsalino had a peach finish, some others referred to a casmere.

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Thank you for the info.

Some follow-up questions.

When is the velour process performed (prior to hat making? during hat making?) and by whom (felt provider? hat maker?)?

So what type of felt (rabbit/hare or beaver or ?) is most desired for velour?

I have no clue which fur would be preferred for the raised-nap applications. I visited Winchester Hat Corp. (owned by Stratton) last year and got a tour of how they begin with baled fur, blend it, the felting process, through to stacks of hat bodies. The hat bodies are sold and leave there to be finished either in factories or by custom hatters. I suspect that every independent hatter we are aware of has used Winchester bodies at one time or another.

One of the final steps is a visual inspection to find weak (thin, or a hole) spots in the hat body. Next to the lady performing this inspection was a machine that had some cylindrical attachments with a surface like metal bristles, curved all in one direction like fingers. Imagine a paint-stripping attachment for an electric drill; similar idea but more customized to this application.

I asked how the velvet, peluche, et. cet. were done and the lady took a rejected hat body, set that metal bristle attachment to spinning, and then held the hat body against it and rotated it around to get an equal effect over the entire hat body exterior. They stopped at this point, and showed me that they then had blade attachments for trimming it back from peluche, but did not demonstrate. I suspect they leave that to the hatter, and since it was a simple step to raise the nap, a hatter could start with any hat body and do this.

The hat body is a rough product - a regular finished hat would have to go through quite a bit of sanding (some by machine perhaps, and then by hand) to produce smooth felt. They gave me a rejected hat body to 'play' with, and after some sanding effort at home, I have decided to keep my day job . A question I still have - since the 'furry' hats are the result of raising the nap before the body is sanded, aren't these just versions of unfinished felt? They appear to be a novelty, desirable by some, but I get the impression that a smooth-finished felt requires a ton more sweat & toil; a much more valuable product. It may take some effort to get a velvet looking even/consistent, but it seems to me that a smooth-finished felt would require much more effort to achieve. Maybe a real hatter will give us a clue.

As for the fur blend, they of course would not reveal any exact mix proportions, but did explain that all-same fur will not felt; so no felt is really 100% of x, but must include at least a small portion of some alternate fur to achieve the strength to survive the hat-making process. They were rather matter-of-fact about that; so no hat manufacturer, no felter, no hatter can really provide a hat made of 100% of a particular grade of x. It may be as close to 100% as possible yet still strong enough to felt; the blending was done by hand for each body before the fur was blown onto (sucked onto) the cone, so, in truth, each hat body is a widdle bit uneke.

So you are saying velour is unfinshed fur felt? I have a bunch of velour hats with a wide range of finishes. They appear highly finished to me but by just a different process that could be difficult for a small custom hatter to accomplish. I know of velour (made from vintage siberian hare felt) hats that are priced over $1000.00. I have read on this message board that Tonak is is only producer velour fur felt. My guess is that there are other sources that may not be known in the US. Maybe when I get some time I will take pictures of all the different finishes for comment.

Maybe there is more to it than I am aware of; highly possible. Maybe there is great difficulty in getting the velvet / casmere finishes to look so nice. We need an expert hatter to help us out.

MisterGrey said:

Are there other kinds of fur felt used to make hats other than rabbit? If so, how can I tell the difference, if it isn't blatantly stated? I'd personally really rather not wear a rabbit hat.

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From the archives...

A member comments here and on a follow-up thread about his "ultimate" hat...

This thread about felt "quality" elaborates on several fur felts, including my personal favorite -- OTTER! :cool2: (In terms of plush-i-ness, IMO the green Disney Otter Fifteen lid I held far exceeded the softness of even the Glove/Suede-Finishes of Dobbs Gay Prince and Knox Alcazar fedoras!)

Although, as alluded to in that thread -- tactile differences in fur felt are not always necessarily indicative of "quality."

What about ermine?

From what I have been told not all types of furs lean towards velours or long hair finishes.

The good quality melousine hoods/capelines can only be produced from hare.
Rabbit hair is to short and too britle to be handled with the combs they use to make the felt release it's hairs again to give it this fluffly look. ( the inside is still the original felted texture)
That's why the colour range is ratger limited on melousine hoods.
They are also becoming harder to get your hands on.

Like Mayser, velours is my favourite finish.
They come in all sorts of shine and lengths.

I have some cashmere hoods, they are by far the warmest yet toughest felts I ever worked with/blocked.

barrowjh said:

As for the fur blend, they of course would not reveal any exact mix proportions, but did explain that all-same fur will not felt; so no felt is really 100% of x, but must include at least a small portion of some alternate fur to achieve the strength to survive the hat-making process. They were rather matter-of-fact about that; so no hat manufacturer, no felter, no hatter can really provide a hat made of 100% of a particular grade of x. It may be as close to 100% as possible yet still strong enough to felt; the blending was done by hand for each body before the fur was blown onto (sucked onto) the cone, so, in truth, each hat body is a widdle bit uneke.

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Can anyone verify this - that a felt cannot be pure, but must be at least a minor blend?

If you read the threads on fur types or google the subject you will see that an aspect of Beaver fur that makes it an exceptional felting fur is the fibers are barbed or have little hooks so the individual fibres link together to form a very bonded felt. As to the 100% I cannot speak to that but if they are not I have many bones to pick with the custom hatters that have sold me 100% beaver fur hats!

When I visited the Winchester factory, the head man showed us a 100% pure beaver belly fur felt body, not just pure beaver but only the belly fur of the beaver. I've been on the tour twice & never heard about blending in other animal fur with their pure beaver fur felt bodies. I can see adding beaver fur to other fur as a binding agent but don't see what you'd need to add to beaver since those are some prickly fibers...

dnjan said:

Can anyone verify this - that a felt cannot be pure, but must be at least a minor blend?

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As others have stated this is not the case. You don't have to have blends.

By the way this thread is way out of date. For example there has been much knowledge gained regarding specialty finishes.

Off topic, but I once had a salesman tell me that it is impossible to make a navy suit without blending the wool with polyester. I had wanted pure wool, and he just wanted to complete the sale after I found out it was 20% polyester. I wonder if it was a similar issue with the "hats must be blends of different furs" guy?

It was not the same as the polyester example. It was about strength of the felt achieved through blending, instead of being achieved through weight alone. I think the conversation may not have been about beaver at all, but was probably spoken in the context of a 'European Hare' felt vs American rabbit felt, and they were trying to explain that blending results in a stronger felt-per-weight, so trying to isolate to use only one particular source is not optimal. When Winchester was felting during our visits - these were probably destined for military or uniform sales, their primary customers - the blend was like 3 types/grades of fur, not necessarily equal proportions. It could have been 4, I remember it was more than just 2. Machine-blocking the original cone of fur felt into a crown/brim 'hood' or 'hat blank' is where the strength is so critical - much experimentation (trial and error) goes into figuring out which blends (and weight) can take that stress and which ones have higher failure rates. This is a good reason to visit and tour Winchester's felting operation, stand there and watch a fur felt in cone shape get stamped (blocked) into a crown/brim hat shape in the span of about a second, as water is pouring over it. A tear, or a weak, thin spot in the felt at this point and it is trash right then, wasted effort. I cannot remember the context of the conversation it was so long ago - they may have been explaining why their stock military/uniform grade hats involved several different fur sources - to achieve the specified strength with less weight. Same for dyeing the fur felt under pressure - to meet customer specifications regarding color-fastness. That conversation was a long time ago!

It doesn't make sense to obsess about purity of the fur source, as if it were the single determinant of felt quality - those of us with several vintage hats in our collection (or several that have 'passed through') have held some felts that were absolutely awesome - without any mention of beaver in the hat markings. A Borsalino Marque Grand Luxe - wow - those velours were priced about 20% higher than their beaver hats (12L vs 10L) in vintage advertisements posted. Today - they are worth more than just a 20% premium to those of us that troll for them!! For some reason - I am not aware of vintage velours that were advertised as beaver, why is that? Not all velours were the same; the different manufacturers had their own proprietary processes.

Edited to acknowledge EstherWeis' post above - she has already explained that the longer fur fiber quality of Hare is essential to the velours and some of the other special finishes.

barrowjh said:

Edited to acknowledge EstherWeis' post above - she has already explained that the longer fur fiber quality of Hare is essential to the velours and some of the other special finishes.

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Doesn 't have to do with the Hare hair length. Hare fur is difficult to felt but is very durable. Hare fur creates a high sheen / gloss when hot wet brushed during felting. The finest Velours were produced from Saxon Hare. I have very detailed information on my site. Too much for one post. I recently received detailed information (from a past major Austrian Velour producer) on post WWII Hot Wet Brushed Velour production but it will take me some time to go through it all.

mayserwegener said:

Doesn 't have to do with the Hare hair length. Hare fur is difficult to felt but is very durable. Hare fur creates a high sheen / gloss when hot wet brushed during felting. The finest Velours were produced from Saxon Hare. I have very detailed information on my site. Too much for one post. I recently received detailed information (from a past major Austrian Velour producer) on post WWII Hot Wet Brushed Velour production but it will take me some time to go through it all.

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