Moth Damage Repair

[Redfokker]

pic please

+1 yes, please and thank you.

 

[RJR]

Nice work!

+1

 

[AbridgedPause]

I plan to attempt this on an OR clone that I got off eBay with misleading pictures. Rather than suffer through an argument and stress over a refund, I'm going to try to fix up these moth bites. Will start after Xmas and I'll be posting pictures of the progress. It's a light beige hat though, so from the comments on here, I'm hoping I can pull it off conspicuously.

 

[nickwellings]

How did that go, Abridged?

 

[Hat and Rehat]

How did that go, Abridged?

Pause.

Sent from my LM-X410(FG) using Tapatalk

 

[Hat and Rehat]

Pause.

Sent from my LM-X410(FG) using Tapatalk

I'm going to bump this thread, but open the horizon a little wider.
Technically, we can't 'repair' damaged felt. But we can and do mend it.

I have just been doing some of that.

You will see some felts below in need of mending, followed by my attempts to mend them. In the rear right is a thrift store wool cheaply in white. When I stripped the original sweat and trim, the hatband had been put on with so much hot glue that pulling out the glue left a mere membrane of wool felt on one side. Trying to block the hood, obtained by soaking it, resulted in a blow out split along that glue line, discouraging because I had figured out a way to somewhat stiffen foam wanna-blocks, and seemed to be creating a hat without crazy bulging.
I kept it around, because everything is practice and instruction, some in what to do, some in what not to do.
That was before I ever came across Scientific Hat Finishing and Renovating, and before I ever stumbled upon the Fedora Lounge. Everything I knew about hats was taken from YouTube, which includes data that conflicts with other YouTube data. I watched "Grizz" manhandle some felts to block some rather nice Western hats. I also watched some New York milliner show how to make a hat block from Great Stuff expanding construction foam, .... and I was off to the races.
The little black hat in the left foreground was the product of a soft, bulging block, but I kept it around because you have to practice on something. My first attempt at sewing edge binding on a new to me sewing machine was pretty hilarious, and the bright blue tatters are what's left of it. Undaunted, ready for more practice, I charged on. After all, these were wool discards I brought home two to four bucks each from thrift stores. I even used my new sewing machine to zigzag the gash in the white one closed, despite my total lack of mastery of the thing.
Shopping for classic blocks that didn't squat and bulge under pressure, and also beginning to make solid ones of wood myself, the practice, and education, continued.
Sourcing Scientific Hat Renovating, and also the Lounge, I was acquiring fur felt to practice on, but at the lowest possible eBay price. The washed out chocolate looking stingy in the picture, which I'll speak more of later, comes from that round of practice.
Coached by Ermatinger and Loungers, I leapt back into the fray at the bell. In fact, the final hats on the table are both blocked on my own blocks, alas, with mixed results. That tall stranger was a 6 7/8 Resistol, which, as of today, is ironed, pounced, and measuring 7 1/8. It awaits my efforts to make a band block, as I own the flange I need. So far it is proof of the value of practice (though I may still screw it up).
The shorter, stouter creature of light complexion is a 3X OR, a child of the 60s, and one of my $10/ five hat package from the cowboy in Commerce City. I also purchased another OR in that package, but it is not part of this story.
The package was a combination of 7 3/8 and 7 1/2, however the silver OR had been stripped of her tags years ago. It's hard to calculate wether a hat you can spin around your 7 1/8 noggin spins at 3/8 RPM or 1/2 RPM. You see her there stretched to a block with LO proportions and a 24" circumference.
All well and good, you might say. You would be wrong.
But you'll have to tune into the next episode to find out why.
Cliffhanger alert!

Sent from my LM-X410(FG) using Tapatalk

 

[Hat and Rehat]

I'm planning for this to be a bit of a felt mending tutorial with pictures, but I'll need assistance from the rest of you. I'll be showing techniques I'm trying, not ones that I have mastered. Some I've read of, but may be doing wrong. Some might be my own ideas, but others may have a better idea. I don't want it to be a tutorial of how NOT to do things, which it could become without your help.
I've learned a lot here, and am hoping I can give back to the community, but I will need help.
Right now I need to put the phone down and do something productive!

Sent from my LM-X410(FG) using Tapatalk

 

[Hat and Rehat]

I have to regroup my thoughts a little, but I did charge ahead with some repair efforts of my own.
First I need to own up to blocking errors on the 3X OR. I was blocking it a size up, and also going LO, so most of my work should have been on the top of the crown. My pulling down ought to have only been to get the wrinkles out. I also should have paid more attention to the existing break of the hat. My pictures show why. The sweat in that hat has clearly been resewn more than once. The stitch length on every other Stetson I've been learning on has been 3/16" to 1/4" when sewing the reed tape to the felt, the bigger length in western weight. This OR has stitch length at about 1/8" in places if you assume a single time of attaching it. I think multiple sewings explains it better, but you can judge for yourselves. The upshot is that this very nice felt had perforations like a letter or something that says, "tear here".
I tore there. Not on purpose, of course. But my puller downer work was more ambitious than it should have been. Please learn from my mistake.

Sent from my LM-X410(FG) using Tapatalk
I hope my pictures show the 4" tear I made at the brim break, but also how fragile the break was most of the way around.
I aso had two other holes, one mothing from the inside that broke through, and the other pinch weakness, break open in blocking.
Maybe it's time to write it off and give it to the kids to play with. What if it was your grandpa's hat though, or an early Boss Raw Edge? At what point do you give up? I didn't give up, because I wanted to find out if anything could work.
After reading everything in these older Lounge threads, I shredded the edges of felt with a needle, then attempted to use super glie, which some loungers in the past suggested, but only to make little tacks along the break. I knew superglue dries hard, and I was pretty sure it would show like a dark, wet spot on silverbelly. I tried the little tacks, and they didn't hold. I figured the only hope was to sew it closed, which I did.
More to come.
Please provide input.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

The picture you see with the blue tape is after I decided to add glue from the inside of the hat. The pics also show two other hats on the current aganda.

Until next time!

Sent from my LM-X410(FG) using Tapatalk

 

[Hat and Rehat]

The picture you see with the blue tape is after I decided to add glue from the inside of the hat. The pics also show two other hats on the current aganda.

Until next time!

Sent from my LM-X410(FG) using Tapatalk

Sent from my LM-X410(FG) using Tapatalk

 

[steur]

I have to regroup my thoughts a little, but I did charge ahead with some repair efforts of my own.
First I need to own up to blocking errors on the 3X OR. I was blocking it a size up, and also going LO, so most of my work should have been on the top of the crown. My pulling down ought to have only been to get the wrinkles out. I also should have paid more attention to the existing break of the hat. My pictures show why. The sweat in that hat has clearly been resewn more than once. The stitch length on every other Stetson I've been learning on has been 3/16" to 1/4" when sewing the reed tape to the felt, the bigger length in western weight. This OR has stitch length at about 1/8" in places if you assume a single time of attaching it. I think multiple sewings explains it better, but you can judge for yourselves. The upshot is that this very nice felt had perforations like a letter or something that says, "tear here".
I tore there. Not on purpose, of course. But my puller downer work was more ambitious than it should have been. Please learn from my mistake.

Sent from my LM-X410(FG) using Tapatalk
I hope my pictures show the 4" tear I made at the brim break, but also how fragile the break was most of the way around.
I aso had two other holes, one mothing from the inside that broke through, and the other pinch weakness, break open in blocking.
Maybe it's time to write it off and give it to the kids to play with. What if it was your grandpa's hat though, or an early Boss Raw Edge? At what point do you give up? I didn't give up, because I wanted to find out if anything could work.
After reading everything in these older Lounge threads, I shredded the edges of felt with a needle, then attempted to use super glie, which some loungers in the past suggested, but only to make little tacks along the break. I knew superglue dries hard, and I was pretty sure it would show like a dark, wet spot on silverbelly. I tried the little tacks, and they didn't hold. I figured the only hope was to sew it closed, which I did.
More to come.
Please provide input.

Interesting posts, H&R. If holes and tears can be repaired in an acceptable way (it will never be as new of course) it means more hats can be saved. Didn't @alanfgag mention in one of his posts that he used a special textile glue once for repairing a hat? That might do the trick for the moth holes.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

Interesting posts, H&R. If holes and tears can be repaired in an acceptable way (it will never be as new of course) it means more hats can be saved. Didn't @alanfgag mention in one of his posts that he used a special textile glue once for repairing a hat? That might do the trick for the moth holes.

Whatever search parameters I used brought up this thread and one other. I bumped it too, and hinted that the powers that be could merge the two.
In one of the two, a Lounger said to use another glue instead, talas jade, used in book binding, because it remains flexible. I put that in my search engine, discovering that it's a high grade, specialty PVA, so part of the same family as common white glue.
As it happens, I had very very recently purchased a high grade, specialty PVA; the strongest one Home Depot sells, which also stays flexible. I figured it was probably an acceptable substitute, and already had decided to use it prior to the Super Glue tacks that failed. The tacks with fast drying SG were supposed to hold things in place while I worked with the PVA, and I intended at that time to use the PVA together with felt shavings, scuffed off with sandpaper. I was going to put a small application of the glue, then rub the felt dust in, then repeat until I had built the felt up to the existing felt. I had previously frayed the edges of the tear, and holes in two other hats, and sanded the insides and unbound edges to gather piles of felt. When gathered together it makes a fluffy mass. The OR has a bound edge and thin felt. I sanded it a little, but then harvested felt from a doner raw edge western, a Beaver Brand of very similar color. It is supposed to be 5X and also had the brim cut at some point with no rounding jack, so there are excellent places to sand the edge for felt fluff because the brim is bigger there.
My plan was to start on the hat that was a throwaway, using it for practice, then move to the other hat, a dress weight, for additional practice, thus having some familiarity with the technique when I came to the 3X OR, the only one I was seriously concerned about saving.

Sent from my LM-X410(FG) using Tapatalk

Hat one was a really filthy Biltmore with very good leather and decent lining. I bought it at the $1.29/ lb. "Dumpster diving" thrift store I've described elsewhere. It weighed 8 oz. before I stripped it, so I had 65 cents wrapped up in it. I joked about it catching an arrow back in the day, then said I bought it for parts. I'll buy all the sweatbands for 65 cents that I can find!
I did manage to get the smaller hole to begin filling with glue and fuzz, but the Superglue tack failed and it was downhill from there. If you read the earlier posts in this thread people were applying their glue with a toothpick. I have some small artist's paint brushes and decided to use a very fine one of those. That was a mistake, but it took me a while to realize it.
After the SG tack failed I continued to try filling the hole with glue and fuzz. Hoping to get it to bond with the needle frayed edges, I brushed glue on them, then stuck fuzz on with tweezers. Then I tried to put more glue on with my brush, only to have fuzz stick to the brush and come back out.
Getting frustrated, I came up with yet another bad idea. I had a cup of water beside me to rinse my brush before
The glue dried and ruined it. I decided to add a little water to the fuzz to make it a little soggy and compacted so it would not pull out when I applied more glue.
That didn't work either, but it did cause the thinned glue to seep into the surrounding felt. If you look at hat 1, you can observe that an area four times as big as the hole itself is now damaged by thinned glue soaking into it.
Stubborn as I am, I admitted it was time to return to the drawing board. The technique of glue and fuzz alone might work for a mothing that did not go through the hat, but only left a crater. It wasn't working for holes.
I remembered that in some posts I had read two comments were made that did not get further discussion. Someone said to glue a piece of binding for backing. A few posts later someone said use liner material. I had breezed by it with little thought. It came back to mind, and I suddenly remembered that I had found two small pieces of 3/8" grossgrain glued to the inside of one of my hats at the top of the crown and pulled them off.bit suddenly made sense. My goal was to keep the felt as thin and flexible as possible, so I opted for liner instead of grossgrain because it's thinner. I cut patches for the camel and brown hat's from fabric I had collected for the purpose of making liners. The earlier picture with blue tape I used to attempt to stabilize the tears in the felt while I glued backing patches inside. In retrospect, I wish I had grabbed matching thread and basted the felt together. The tape didn't prevent the edges separating, or changing to different planes where they meet. Next time I try this I'll put enough stitches to hold it, glue my patches on the inside, check the outside to make sure all is aligned (which I couldn't do through the tape) then leave it to dry overnight. The outside basting stitches can be snipped off the next day with small, pointed scissors.

I glued the backing patches on with the PVA after cutting them. I spread the glue with a bigger chisel brush, applied the satin fabric, then applied another coat of glue to saturate the backing. I set them aside to dry and moved on to the OR. That's when I stitched the tear at the break, then I applied backing patches to the two moth holes. I used a little bit of a cream colored satin pillow case, rather than cut up a good light colored liner. The bedding was softer than satin liners are, which wasn't ideal. A stiffer fabric will span the hole better without sagging down into it.
I then set that hat aside for the next day as well.
Because I'm going into so much detail, hoping to prevent other people from trying things that don't work, I'm going to leave you with some pictures, then set this aside for a later time.

Looking back at my earlier shots, the latter ones above, I see that I did more than just the backing on the moth damage that night. I also backed and strengthened the brim break damage. However, I'll still wait to explain the hows and whys of that.
(Monday morning)

What I also did on the OR that night was provide backing for the break at the brim, where the sweatbands attaches. I wanted to back the stitched area, knowing my threads could pull right through that little bit of felt between my stitches and the edges of that tear. Felt is really strong, as a mass, but if you were to poke through a brim near the edge, you could pull through it toward the unsupported outside with little effort.
And I was concerned about the very perforated look along two other sections of the break. In my experience, once you pull all of the little threads out, the line of stitching is barely percieved, even on lesser hats than the 3X. These holes drew your eye.
For that reason, I grabbed an old, stained liner which I had saved to dissassemble and used to pattern reproduction liners. I knew it would already be cut on bias to follow the curve of the of hat crown. I simply cut about 5/16"-3/8" off the ottom all the way around. Then I glued it onto the inside of the OR. The sweat band will hide that.
Still concerned about the perforated appearance, I decided to also use the glue on the outside. I applied it at the break all the way around with my chisel brush, trying to push the adhesive into the oversized stitching holes.
That's when I set it aside for the night.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

The day following that last edit, after all of my backing had dried in place, I again started trying to fill all voids with PVA glue and felt shavings/sanding fluff. Because my brush and excessive glue had left clearly visible areas around the tear either white, where I thinned the glue with water, or dark, where the fuzz was pushed all the way into the glue, rather than glued to the top of it, I decided a toothpick made sense. Using that I could get down under the edges of the damage with glue, then work the felt in after it. I felt that I had learned enough to jump straight to the 3x OR,
and filled the two holes that way. A little bit of excess glue had already gotten into the felt while applying the backing blind because of the tape, but what I filled from the top was pretty successful. Not perfect, but not bad. The crease hole is not visible from a distance. The through hole from mothing already had a darkened area of felt, so shows more. I think.stiffer backing fabric would have helped. You can see from the inside how concave it is.

Sent from my LM-X410(FG) using Tapatalk

 

[Hat and Rehat]

I have done more work on the throw away hat's. Hat #1, the Biltmore Western, because of the major damage, had had two fill operations. I believe the other one is a Fairmont, but need to check my records to confirm. It is the filthiest hat I ever bought. It looked like somebody got up every morning and combed their hair with butter before they put it on. I picture some Stephen King character, and don't even want to contemplate what he does after that.
Hiding inside the very tight pinch was a hole. Two gas baths later, and after this mending, I may do something with this felt.

Sent from my LM-X410(FG) using Tapatalk
I did quickly block the crowns yesterday before the glue work.

I have a test in progress. As I type the 3X OR is bathing in map the. It's in about 3", crown down. In a few hours I'll brush the crown and flip it over, then later I'll scrub the brim as well.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

I just went and checked the OR. Because it is only one hat, I soaked it in a large stainless steel bowl to use less naptha. It was soaking crown down for close to 5 hours. I just went out and sponged it vigorously with a hatters sponge. None of the repair, er ... mending, work suffered at all in the gas.
I flipped it to submerge the brim for some time. The truth is, the gas wicks into the entire hat anyway, but I am hoping to clean the bound edge up and not have to replace it.

Sent from my LM-X410(FG) using Tapatalk

 

[Edward]

So, I've been poring over a number of hat repair idea threads this last few days, as I'm about to have a go at dealing some moth divots on a hat which is - not exactly disposable, but it won't be the end of the world if it doesn't work out so well. What I've noticed is that we have lots of ideas, but few photos. I thought it might be helpful if we had a thread here where we can post pictures of successful repairs (in progress as well would be great), as well as discuss what worked and what did not. If this already exists, please point me in that direction!

 

[RBH]

Edward, there are a few photos in this thread. Hope it helps!!!

 

[belfastboy]

So, I've been poring over a number of hat repair idea threads this last few days, as I'm about to have a go at dealing some moth divots on a hat which is - not exactly disposable, but it won't be the end of the world if it doesn't work out so well. What I've noticed is that we have lots of ideas, but few photos. I thought it might be helpful if we had a thread here where we can post pictures of successful repairs (in progress as well would be great), as well as discuss what worked and what did not. If this already exists, please point me in that direction!

I have attempted to photo a number of my repairs but it is difficult to get the small moth nibbles to show in the photos. I have experimented with a number of techniques and glues but keep returning to the use of a light weight, clear spray glue used in crafting. I spray it on a piece of cardboard and use very very sparingly amounts applied with the pointy end of a toothpick. The glue does dry hard so sparingly is the operative word. I use an exacto knife blade to scrape the donour felt as the fibres are a bit longer than those raised by sandpaper. It is painstaking work but the patience does pay off. Small amounts of glue dabbed into the moth divot, follow by tamping in some felt scrapings, a bit more glue, more tamping of fresh scrapings......repeat as necessary. Overfill the hole and then finish it off with a bit of sanding with 1200 grit paper. The divot will be invisible in a dark felt, still slightly visible in a silverbelly.

 

[Edward]

Edward, there are a few photos in this thread. Hope it helps!!!

Thanks!

 

[belfastboy]

I went to my local fabric store and while there asked about glue. The nice lady sent me home with some fabric glue that can be used on Tshirts and she is pretty sure it stays flexible....AND it is water soluble so it can be watered down. I just need to dig out an old felt with mothing to practice on. This might be a step up from my craft glue that does dry hard.....but it does dry clear.