What makes a hat shrink?

[Orgetorix]

I'm curious--what makes a hat shrink or taper when it gets wet? What is going on with the felt when that happens?

 

[AdmiralTofu]

And perhaps almost as important... how would one undo the effects of a taper put in by a careless reshaping effort, without the resources to go all-out and totally reblock the hat?

...

...okay, that was more for me personally than the topic at hand. But now that it's been brought up, I am curious about shrinkage and tapering. What exactly's happening to the felt when this goes on? Anybody?

 

[scotrace]

others are more qualified, but since no one else is jumping in...

When a hat body is manufactured, the basic felt is called a cone, because that is its shape. A brimless, tall, somewhat pointy cone of tightly compressed animal fur.

When a hat is blocked and finished with a straight crown but has not been properly prepared gets wet and dried repeatedly, it tries to return to that initial cone shape - wide bottom, pointy top. Thus the sides of the crown pull inward, creating an unwanted taper.

Our hatters will know about repairing unwanted taper, but as far as I understand it, this is not something you can easily fix yourself. It needs to be put on a block and do some time under a steam bag to force it to behave again.

 

[cookie]

Panamas Shrink too why?

Do panamas shrink for the same reason? I have to buy mine 1 size bigger ie 61not the usual 60.

 

[scotrace]

Sharpetoys? Your thoughts on panama shrinkage?

 

[Fletch]

Some hats I have known

shrink because they hate me. They hate me jamming my icky sweaty head up them all the time. They are old and just want to be left alone.

 

[Art Fawcett]

Scotrace pretty much covered it Oregetorix, in it's simplest form. When stretching the cone/body over the blocks you are putting pressure on the felting itself and similar to a rubber band it naturally wants to return to original shape. It's the hatters job to try to keep this from happening and everyone has their own theories as to how.
Tofu, I'm sorry but I have bad news..there aren't any "home" remedies that i know of to let you basically rebuild the hat. It's gotta go to a hatter.
Fletch...I've had hats hate me also & I don't even put them on my head....must be a kharma thing
Seriously folks, there have been numerous threads on this and although I'm not good enough with the board to find them, I know they are there and would be very enlightening.

 

[Art Fawcett]

Panama's shrinking??? I've never heard or seen of this cookie. I'm trying to imagine how it could happen but a true panama wouldn't appear to have the properties needed. I'm sure that humidity and moisture will eventually misshape a panama, but shrinking I can't imagine unless you are talking about the leather sweatband.

 

[Fletch]

Fletch...I've had hats hate me also & I don't even put them on my head....must be a kharma thing.

You should have a shirt made that says HE HAT ME

 

[deanglen]

Nice irony: water leads to taper; steam(heat+water) in the blocking process removes it.

dean

 

[Art Fawcett]

Not really Dean, the drying on the block removes it ( for a while)