Sunrise Hat Company felt (nutria) and hatters’ tools

belfastboy said:

I would agree with you and add the Moss

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I'll agree with all of you and add the cobalt... and an extra inch on the brim width!

My Wolfbrae fedora made from a Sunrise 100% nutria 150g dress weight hat body arrived a few days ago. I’m not sure how to feel about this hat. It came so close, but it disappointed in at least two regards. The gunmetal color is fantastic! The hand is wonderful as it is soft and luxurious. The felt is dense and despite some early concerns it’s plenty firm enough without the need to have any stiffening agents (shellac) added. The build quality is great and I don’t have any complaints about how it was made.

The disappointments:
1. The felt is thick. It’s slightly thicker than my recent manufacture Stetson Royal De Luxe open crown hats and the Stetson felt was already thicker than I wanted. This is a winter hat, but I live in a place where winter is mild and short so.... Wolfbrae, @belfastboy reported that the felt started to become mottled and he had to lure it to even out the color. He then felt it wasn’t going to accept the pouncing required to get it to a thickness I wanted. Disappointing, but not as bad as the next issue.

2. The hat body was just too small. I had to compromise: shorter brim, lower crown, or a more tapered block. I went with a more tapered block and despite shaping and re-shaping it a few times I can’t overcome the issues the tapering causes with the crease and shape. I’m not done and think it will probably end up with a simple center crease. If the hat body had been larger this would not be an issue. I didn’t go to extremes on the brim width or the crown height and there really isn’t a good reason why the felt wasn’t made large enough to accommodate me. Gannon has my midnight 150g felt and he thinks he can get close to 6” open crown and close to a 3” brim out of that hat body, but only time will tell.

The best part of this hat is that my wife said she really likes it. She usually doesn’t voice opinions on my hats and sometimes laughs at my westerns. The wife liking a hat means a lot so there is that.

I sent Sunrise an email explaining that their 150g hat bodies were not large enough to be made into a fedora with the dimensions I wanted. I told them I knew the risk when I ordered and didn’t want a refund etc. I asked if they could order them larger in the future. This was the reply from Sunrise:

“Thanks for the feedback. It's good to know as we don't use the 150grams that much ourselves. We started making them to meet external demand. The feedback is helpful. We'll keep you posted if we change the dimensions moving forward.”

All I could do is ask.

deadlyhandsome said:

I sent Sunrise an email explaining that their 150g hat bodies were not large enough to be made into a fedora with the dimensions I wanted. I told them I knew the risk when I ordered and didn’t want a refund etc. I asked if they could order them larger in the future. This was the reply from Sunrise:

“Thanks for the feedback. It's good to know as we don't use the 150grams that much ourselves. We started making them to meet external demand. The feedback is helpful. We'll keep you posted if we change the dimensions moving forward.”

All I could do is ask.

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They should know there are other people here who won't buy from them until Brent is satisfied with the size and quality!

Damn straight. If Brent ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!

Tukwila said:

They should know there are other people here who won't buy from them until Brent is satisfied with the size and quality!

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I got the replacement felt today. There isn't much crown to work with on this one. The hat body kinda resembles a nipple.
This is the block it's gotta go over. Yikes!

Gobi said:

I got the replacement felt today. There isn't much crown to work with on this one. The hat body kinda resembles a nipple.
This is the block it's gotta go over. Yikes!
View attachment 314794

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Looks like you have your work cut out for you. Let us know how it turns out . I am curious to see how much height you get out of it. Those square shoulders on the block really eat up dimension on the felt.

belfastboy said:

Looks like you have your work cut out for you. Let us know how it turns out . I am curious to see how much height you get out of it. Those square shoulders on the block really eat up dimension on the felt.

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I got nearly the full 6". Very close. I had to take a little bit of the brim.

Michael Gannon just finished my sage 220g western hat. I asked for a review and opinions on the felt that I could share here on The Lounge. Here’s Gannon’s reply:

“I found this hat body to be very similar to the natural and did not really notice it being more stiff. I like the felt and I like the way it blocks, so far I have found that it blocks really easily, almost no resistance at all so tall crowns should not be a problem. Winchester's western felt is much more stiff and can be extremely difficult to block tall (at least for me) so much so that I usually have trouble getting the crowns to 6" especially at a large size. I can get the felt thinner on the crown which will make for a much more malleable felt than a typical western but I still prefer the dress weight beaver for a true "vintage" style soft open crown. However the size of the dress weight beaver hat bodies varies quite a bit and they usually will not allow for larger dimensions, 6" crown and 3" brim is the absolute max with those and even that is hard to achieve most of the time so for larger dimensions the nutria westerns are a great alternative.

I hope the size of the nutria hat bodies remains consistent and that you don't start to see variation in the size depending on the color or batch. So far I have only seen the lighter colors and have not worked with one of their darker colors yet. They are a western hat body so I don't anticipate there being too much difference in the size like there is with Winchester's dress weight hat bodies which can vary from rather large to very small depending on the batch.”

Great news that this sage hat isn’t going to be as stiff as earlier felts offered by Sunrise. I hope to have the hat in-hand by the end of the week.

My 220g sage arrived today after being transformed into a perfect hat by master hatter Michael Gannon. As I requested, the crown is very thin and very dense. It can be dented with the slightest touch, yet when creased it has just enough body to hold its shape perfectly. The crown is more like great vintage dress felt that any modern western felt I’ve handled. Actually, the crown most resembles the crowns on Gannon’s dress hats using Winchester’s beaver felt, but just a bit thicker. Despite Sunrise’s comments about the natural being the only felt that doesn’t have stiffeners, this sage felt is every bit as soft and malleable as the natural.

The brim is another story. Again as I requested, the brim was left thicker and has more firmness to it. It’s not the harsh felt found on so many modern westerns, but it is firm and holds its shape well. The firmer and thicker brim add support to the hat and it’s just what I had requested.

The color color is all over the place depending on lighting and in the surroundings. I do see the green sage tint sometimes but it’s not obvious most of the time. It often appears just as gray and sometimes looks blue-gray. It’s not an overtly green hat in any case.

I really can’t say enough good about the felt. Time will tell, but so far I’m very impressed.

What colors have you received in the 220 gram, Brent?

I just have the natural so far.

Tukwila said:

What colors have you received in the 220 gram, Brent?

I just have the natural so far.

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I have almond, pewter, natural (X2), and sage. The pewter and Almond were from their first offerings and they are very stiff modern western felts. I’m torn between getting a darker felt or another of the lighter offerings. Chestnut, slate and redwood are all on my radar, as is rain cloud.

Update on my hat body, the one that had the dye run out of the crown.. Sunrise never had me send the body back so I decided to try and salvage it as best as I could. I figured if nothing else, I could learn a thing or two from it. Well the color on the inside of the crown looked fine so I popped it inside out and blocked it again. Instead of using boiling water for steam I just wet the hat in the shower with hot water, filled the crown like a bucket, let it soak in and pulled it over the block. So far so good. Then I had to deal with the unpounced felt. Very fuzzy. I had no idea how deep the dye run went and I figured I would quickly sand into the bleached part of the felt but to my surprise I was able to give it a nice finish(a ton of pouncing) without exposing the bleached felt. I ironed the crown quite a bit with no problems. Touched up the pouncing several times. It looks really good compared to where it started with the bleached top. Next I'll be working on the brim and hoping for the best. It might actually look kind of cool when it's done having a bleached top inside the hat. If it turns out ok I'll be ordering another dyed body and use the same techniques to avoid the dye breaking down and running. I love the Honey color and wouldn't mind having another in the same color.

Gobi said:

Update on my hat body, the one that had the dye run out of the crown.. Sunrise never had me send the body back so I decided to try and salvage it as best as I could. I figured if nothing else, I could learn a thing or two from it. Well the color on the inside of the crown looked fine so I popped it inside out and blocked it again. Instead of using boiling water for steam I just wet the hat in the shower with hot water, filled the crown like a bucket, let it soak in and pulled it over the block. So far so good. Then I had to deal with the unpounced felt. Very fuzzy. I had no idea how deep the dye run went and I figured I would quickly sand into the bleached part of the felt but to my surprise I was able to give it a nice finish(a ton of pouncing) without exposing the bleached felt. I ironed the crown quite a bit with no problems. Touched up the pouncing several times. It looks really good compared to where it started with the bleached top. Next I'll be working on the brim and hoping for the best. It might actually look kind of cool when it's done having a bleached top inside the hat. If it turns out ok I'll be ordering another dyed body and use the same techniques to avoid the dye breaking down and running. I love the Honey color and wouldn't mind having another in the same color.

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I’d love to see some photos. I’m glad you were able to salvage something from it.

I got around to finishing my first Sunrise felt. First hat I've done from scratch. Color is Natural.

Very nice!

I finished the body with the color damage. I turned it inside out so the bleached part is inside. The only noticeable damage is the ring around the brim where it was touching the pot. I actually kind of like the look though. I decided to leave it open crown, at least for a while. I'm diggin it.

I just took delivery of two 220g western hat bodies. One in pewter for someone else, and one in rain cloud for me. Both of these felts are like my first hat bodies from Sunrise: modern western stiff! Completely different from the hat bodies I sent to Gannon and just like the hat bodies I sent to Phoenix and David Gibson (the new owner of VS). Aside from the stiffness of the felt, the as-felted dimensions are very different:
EDIT: I’ve been informed that the pewter is a dress weight felt so that at least accounts for the difference in dimensions.

Pewter:
5 3/8” open crown
3 1/2” brim

Rain Cloud:
5 3/4” open crown
4 1/2” brim

Now to be fair, I don’t know how the pewter felt was sold and maybe the dimensions were disclosed to the buyer (I’m just the go-between).

I like the color of the rain cloud felt, and the dimensions will allow for lots of flexibility in choosing styles, but the stiff felt is not ideal. I’ve gotten spoiled by my last two Sunrise nutria thats Gannon made me. I’m sure the hatter can help the felt some, but by its nature it’s going to be a stiff western hat no matter what the hatter does.

I’ve photographed the felt in various lighting to give an idea of what the colors truly look like:



Sunrise is upfront about the stiffness varying based on colors and ???, but if you want a softer more vintage type felt make sure you get one with minimal stiffeners.

For those interested, here’s Michael Gannon’s opinions of the dress weight nutria felts:


The dress nutira felt is nice, it is smooth or soft to the touch, I think "a nice hand" may be a way of describing it. Based on what I have seen so far I think it's as smooth as the beaver or very close.

For a soft thin open crown hat I still prefer beaver. However my experience with the nutria felt is very limited. I have been working on my technique getting Winchester's beaver felt right for that type of hat for many years. With that felt it was primarily about getting it less stiff and more malleable. Trying to get to that point where you can crease the crown without steam and for the most part the crease will stay, which is my personal preference for a soft thin crown. With the nutria I think it is actually going to be the opposite where I will have to figure out how to get the felt more stiff in order to hold a shape. I don't know if "flimsy" is the right word but so far I have found that the nutria felt does not have quite the right stiffness. You don't want stiff felt for that type of hat but I feel there has to be a certain amount of stiffness or just the right amount of stiffness for the crown to shape well.

For a more stiff dress weight hat I would definitely prefer beaver. I think the nutria would take quite a bit of added stiffener to get it where it needs to be for that type of hat. However my experience with stiffener is limited and there may be other hat makers that prefer to add all the stiffeners themselves, I am sure a lot of this is personal preference.

On this hat I was originally worried the brim would not be stiff enough but that is not the case, I think the brim is fine, the crown could possibly use some stiffener but you may prefer it the way it is now.

Thanks,
Michael

And my latest Gannon: another 220g western nutria in natural.