A few questions about blocks

[bloc]

Do you use a band block to hold the shape of the crown when you are shaping the brim?

 

[carranty]

I may actually have misread your question emigran, I was just reading the VS hall of Fame thread before I posted my response so thought you were asking about custom, made to measure band blocks such as those offered by Art Fawcett. If you're talking about standard, run of the mill band blocks, they're the same thing, but don't as accurately potray ones individual head shape. I imagine they just come in set shapes (regular oval, long oval etc) and sizes. Why someone would be one of those over a hat stretcher I'm not sure, it wouldn't be any more effective than a hat stretcher and would be less versatile.

Do you use a band block to hold the shape of the crown when you are shaping the brim?

I've often wondered what standard band blocks are actually used for. I always thought the hat block would suffice.....

 

[TheDane]

Band blocks are quite a number of things, meant for a number of uses. The basic band block is a a piece of wood 1 1/2" - 2" thick and with the same outer form as the bottom of the corresponding crown block. The sides are usually tapering a little. It is used during many hatting processes - ie. while ironing or pouncing the brim, setting the bandline, etc.

While flanging the brim, many hatters use a (so called) brass band block to keep the hat in place in the flange. It's a piece of brass sheet, bend into an oval. It covers/protects the sweatband and has a mechanism so it's circumference can be widened and locked, thereby locking the hat in place. Usually the top of the sheet ring bends over to protect the sweat band reed from the sandbagger's heat.

Other hatters use a hat stretcher to keep the hat in place while flanging - often a four-way model. The stretcher could be seen as a third version of "the band block".

A fourth version is "the personalized band block", that charranty is talking about. Instead of a standard oval it's cut to the exact shape of you head in the hat line. It is used to conform your hat to your head - and to maintain the fit. Most hatters can make you one.

John Penman makes a version of this, split in two (a bit like a stretcher) - so it can stretch a hat a bit in case of a rain-shrink. Aside from regular stretchers, this eBay-seller offers a quality personalized hat stretcher at $80, if you contact him.

 

[emigran]

I've recently acquired two VS beauties (previously only had off the rack hats)and from the descriptions here, and since Art makes his band blocks from the conformer image, they seem to only measure at a minimum height. True... ?? I thought it was actually the shape of one's whole noggin.

 

[emigran]

Dane: Thanks for that bit mate...

 

[gtdean48]

Art's conformer only measures your head shape where you wear a hat & thus the parts that touch the sweatband. You'd need some type of software to map your entire noggin shape. Art's band blocks are only as wide at a sweatband but in the actual shape derived from the conformer he uses.

 

[TheDane]

Art's band blocks are only as wide at a sweatband but in the actual shape derived from the conformer he uses.

- and it tapers a bit, so it approximates better to the head shape