The best hat jack in the world!

Hi gang,

I received my hat jack from John Penman last week and this is among the absolute must haves for anyone who wants to keep or restore the perfect fit of his hat.

Here's two pictures of a prototype - I'll take pictures of my own, when my wife comes back with the camera.





John improved the hat jack by adding the same amount of taper to the outer edge as you'd usually have on the sweatband and I'm happy that mine has that feature too.

So, why and what? - All leather sweatbands will shrink from sweat and body heat if worn heavily. It depends on the leather how fast or slow this process will take, but it will happen. I've found sheepskin to be the leather that shrinks the fastest, followed by calf, then goat and finally even roo hide will shrink if only given enough sweat and heat. Now, you can get one of these standard stretchers on which you easily overstretch the sweatband by cranking it up and above the original size, thereby creating a front to back taper or you can wet down the leather and wear the hat until it's dry, to make it a little bigger again once it's shrunk. With the first method, you have to be extremely careful not to overstretch the sweatband (especially on very soft hats) and secondly you have to find something to place the stretcher on, while it's inside the hat. If you put the hat on the crown, the weight of the strechter will flatten the crown out. The second method includes some rather unpleasant wear for at least some hours.

With THIS hat jack here however, that's a COMPLETELY different story. You adjust it to your size with the help of a measuring tape, pull the lever so you can easily put it into the crown, then you push the lever back and thereby set the hat jack to your excact size. Thanks to the four "legs" you can now just put it on the table to stand there over night and the next morning, your hat will fit as it did when new!

Never any red mark on your head any more, never any un-comfortable wearing of too tight sweatbands and no need to send in the hat for a sweatband replacement.

I just for the life of me can't figure out why such a tool wasn't invented before, but thanks to John it now is and I cannot recommend getting one enough!

Regards,

Marc

As promised, here's mine:



Ain't it just sooooo cool?

Thanks again John.

Regards,

Marc

Very nice looking Marc, what was the price ?

kaiser said:

Very nice looking Marc, what was the price ?

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I do believe it was $95.00..

Here is the price page on his site,,,,,,,

http://www.penmanhats.com/About_Us.html

Thanks Ordinary Guy, that was what I was looking for.

Hi Marc -

Prefatory remark: I'm not being a contrarian just to be contrary. Really, it looks like an exceptionally well-made item and there's things I really like about it. But a few observations seem in order.

1. Sweatband shrinkage.

I've read about this in so many places on this forum that I'm hesitant to say this, but I've worn both (mostly) newer and (some) vintage hats in all kinds of weather, hot and humid and seriously stormy, and can't say that I've ever seen a sweatband shrink to the degree that it affected fit. Really. [huh]

Now I have to make one exception with a vintage Stetson OR whose sweat is of rather thicker leather that has dried out. But for the others, the leather is vastly more elastic than the felt. If it shrank to an appreciable degree, you'd see that. On hats where the felt has shrunk, I've seen rippled sweats - with more material there than the circumference of the crown. Never saw the converse - tapering toward the inside. Even after soaking and air drying.

If I take the leather in my hands and gently tug, it will stretch easily. Not so the felt.

It might just be the particular hats I have.

2. Taper of the wood blocks.

Yep, nice feature. The $20 stretcher I got from Akubra has that also.

3. Feetsies.

Nice touch. Nevertheless, I feel like this falls into the category of "solution in search of a problem". This stretcher seems to have a lot of excess material. I bet I could reduce its weight by 1/3 to 1/2 easily with no harm done. A lighter stretcher would be less likely to flatten the crown if placed brimside-up. With most of mine, I don't think this would be an issue anyway. But even so, what's wrong with setting it crown up on the edge of a shelf or table, or hanging it with the stretcher inside on a peg? With this one, the latter might not be possible. With the Akubra stretcher, it sure is.

Now one thing I really like is the graduated markings indicating size. That seems really useful. And the quality of workmanship looks quite high.

Best wishes,
- Bill

The problem of placing an ordinery stretcher down without flattening the crown shouldn't be a problem at all. Why not just place the strecher with hat on top of an object with a smaller surfact area than the strecher itself, for example a glass? That way no part of the hat need come into contact with the surface it is placed on.

Pricey but nice.

Thank you Marc for the kind words and the thought behind this post but I really don't need the bloody nose.

bendingoak said:

Thank you Marc for the kind words and the thought behind this post but I really don't need the bloody nose.

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Not sure how varying opinions could give you a bloody nose. Atleast on this forum you get some comments.....for and against. And some potential customers.

I have no problem with someone saying they don't like a product but it's another thing when I send a gift to a friend and he is is happy and thankful. Wants to share with everyone and I end up taking it on the chin. If someone can do better please do so. At least I'm trying.

Actually it fixes many of the design issues. Not sure about anyone else on the forum, but I started making my own stretchers a while ago based on the standard design (ex professional furniture maker). The problems I encountered seem to be corrected by John's design.

When stretching a hat a lot, lack of side support tends to change the shape of the hat, not just elongate it but actually straighten out any curvature along the sides. The extra material along the sides of the stretcher should help out in that respect.

Using a standard bolt and screw mechanism, you have to have a "feel" for how much pressure you're applying and how much you are stretching the hat. Using a DeStaCo toggle clamp allows you to set the size before you stretch, a great way to ensure repeatable sizing.

As for the feet, well I can tell you from experience from using the standard stretchers that you can leave compression marks on the felt of the crown by turning it upside down. I always preferred to lay the hat on the edge of a table so the weight was supported and the curl of the brim went off the edge so it wasn't affected.

Now I've got no connection to John, and his hats are outside my self inflicted price limit, but as someone who's designed and built things from scratch, I had to throw my two cents in. It's easy to pick faults when you haven't done it yourself.

bendingoak said:

...and I end up taking it on the chin.

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:deadhorse

huh?

Take it on the chin? Not hardly.

The gent above simply looked at the design and said, it can be done differently and for the following reasons. He did compliment it on looks and construction and offered best wishes.

All were fair observations from a different viewpoint, none were meant to destroy your will to live and create total dispair.

Anybody ever heard the term "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all"? What if we tried "Marc and John, that's a really nice piece of workmanship you've got there, and I can appreciate the thought behind it, but it's just a little to far out of my price-range." Seriously, some people (grown men!) around here whine like a bunch of armchair quarterbacks... I don't see anybody else around here making improvements to a product that people have complained about in the past, yet you want to tell John Penman he's doing it wrong? Give me a break...

It's a beatiful piece, John. Unfortunately, the second sentiment I wrote above is my own I'm cut off after the last OR I bought


The rest of you who can't criticize something without ripping it to shreds, just grow up.

-AFI

Many corporations pay big bucks to hear how to make improvements to their products.

How much do you think Penman Hats is shelling out in consultation fees these days? Do you suppose the checks are already in the mail?

I'll say no more, because then it REALLY will be:
:deadhorse

-AFI

Maybe you should cut back on the coffee, your attack mode is on overdrive.

Woodfluter said:

1. Sweatband shrinkage...
2. Taper of the wood blocks....
3. Feetsies...

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1. Every one of my hats, vintage & modern, shrink after drying from a sweaty usage. Guess my sweat reacts with leather differently. These are mainly Stetsons, new & old, & Akubras with a few Resistols.
2. Reminds me of vintage ones that I have & like plus the roundness on the sides as somebody mentioned.
3. I have cheap stands that I wish had a built in re-sizer.

I too really like setting the size mechanism. Looks like it is well crafted with great logo/branding work.
I thought this forum was all about open opinions. Some folks got some thin skin around here.