Shapeless Beehive

[lukegilly13]

Re: Shapeless Beehive

Get a large pot of water on your stove and bring it to a boil. Place a pot, bowl, or jar inside the hat strategically chosen to maintain the behive shave you desire in the body of the hat. Lower the hat overtop of the boilding water (into the steam) working it on the bowl or pot inside as the steam pulls the wool to the same. Now, to fix the brim, simply let the brim get good and steamed (not drenched, but rather wet) and lay it down on the counter. Place a large pot overtop of the hat (large enough to not crush the main body of the hat). Take a hair dryer on hot and run it around the parts of the brim that are outside of the pot. This will cause the wool/felt to just slightly draw upward on the outside edges. Continue until desired curl or shape is achieved. The problem is, if it doesn't curl enough, you have to start over. It's actually not as difficult as it sounds haha.

[KentuckyReb]

Re: Shapeless Beehive

A friend of mine and I bought a pair of nice fur-felt Clearwaters at an event early last year. Mine wasn't quite like I wanted it, so when I got home I used a teakettle and steamed it until the brim had the right 'flip' to it, got it looking the way it looked best on me. I noticed, though, that after the two or three tries it took to get it right, the hat wasn't as 'hard' as it was when I bought it. I told my buddy this in conversation and he said that when he worked at a western wear shop selling good fur-felt cowboy hats (some of those things cost some major coin!) they would use hairspray. Steam the hat into the block you want, then hairspray the 'altered' place (fairly heavily, according to him), then let the thing dry. I haven't tried it yet, but it does make sense, I suppose. Just .02.


EDITED for new info:

You got me thinking, so I checked on Google. Posting this about 10 minutes after the above. Try searching under "hat care products". Something you'll find sold at a lot of western hat places like Jackson Hole Hat Company, etc., is this stuff called 'Scout Felt Hat Stiffener', or '...Restorer', something like that. I've never tried it, but a lot of those higher-end fur cowboy hats are pretty well made and pretty expensive--the guys who lay down the coin for them like to keep 'em purty. Like I say, I've never used it--you might just be laying out $9 for a rather small can of hairspray with a different label. Just thought I'd tell you.