Removing wrinkles from brim of straw hat?

[JeffOYB]

I was riding my bike a fair bit this summer while wearing a Panama of one kind of another -- their brims kept flapping up (and off) or down. It was silly. So I bought a $40 Stetson with coarse straw weave and a short brim. It stays on when bike riding. Yay!

(A good thread itself -- hats for riding bikes.)

...But this hat has a problem, or two. I bought it from an air-conditioned shop on a day when it was hilariously humid outside. Probably 99% -- it finally burst into a huge downpour. The hat seemed fine in the shop. A day later -- after being outside in the humidity for hours -- I noticed that its brim now had several big wrinkles and waves in the front portion. Also the darn thing seemed a bit off-kilter -- like the crown points one way and the brim another.

Thus my question: Is it possible, easy or reasonable to dampen the hat and iron its brim flat in some way so as to reshape it without the waves or mis-direction?

Here's a pic. You can only see the brim waviness slightly, and maybe the off-kilter is a bit detectable. Pic provided for entertainment purposes only. : )

View attachment 199

 

[Tomasso]

[video=youtube;Fy1YfIPuEio]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy1YfIPuEio[/video]

 

[JeffOYB]

A plain video leaves one with natural questions as regards the OP...

OK, my hat has a snap brim (I guess). It's shaped. It looks like this guy irons the brim of the fancy Panama just plain flat. Also, does coarse straw respond safely to ironing as does a good Panama? One wishes to doublecheck before acting on a video as regards a different kind of hat.

 

[alanfgag]

Ironing the brim flat works well to bring the hat back to life. You can then work with steam to set the snap as you like it. I can't vouch for all types of straw, but I did use a steam iron to revive my collection of straws at the beginning of the season - panamas coarse and fine including some old ones... milans too - they all worked fine.

Work over a heavy cotton dish cloth and use another cotton cloth between the iron and the hat. This post doesn't show the process, but it does show the hats as they looked after.