We bought a Borso Alexandria at the hat shop here in downtown Sandy Eggo. It was behind the counter and had lots of dust on it. Open crown, 6 7/8, just my wife's size. When the shopkeeper offered it to us for $70 we jumped on it.
I tried a few bashes and my wife insisted that it needed to look like the C-crown on my Borso 48 gram fedora. I could not get the Alexandria to look quite right. In my quest for a perfect bash and at wits end I had a brilliant idea. I grabbed one of my old 7 1/8 C-crown cheapo milan hats that has always been very stiff but had a cool bash. I used it as a mold for the C-crown. I first tested to see if the small hat would fit inside the larger hat. It sure did. After a couple of dry runs I ended up steaming the small hat and pushed it into the larger hat making sure to pressure all the extremities. I let it dry a few hours and it came out great! We let it set up a couple of days and ended up dropping the front and back a little bit and are very happy with the results. It came out much better than a freehand bash and was very easy to do.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/art92101/album?.dir=/27b4scd
I tried a few bashes and my wife insisted that it needed to look like the C-crown on my Borso 48 gram fedora. I could not get the Alexandria to look quite right. In my quest for a perfect bash and at wits end I had a brilliant idea. I grabbed one of my old 7 1/8 C-crown cheapo milan hats that has always been very stiff but had a cool bash. I used it as a mold for the C-crown. I first tested to see if the small hat would fit inside the larger hat. It sure did. After a couple of dry runs I ended up steaming the small hat and pushed it into the larger hat making sure to pressure all the extremities. I let it dry a few hours and it came out great! We let it set up a couple of days and ended up dropping the front and back a little bit and are very happy with the results. It came out much better than a freehand bash and was very easy to do.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/art92101/album?.dir=/27b4scd
