Manufacturing of felt hat

How is a felt hat made?

Making a felt hat requires 7 weeks even in large factories because the design of this type of hat remains purely artisanal.

What is the difference between felt and other fabrics?

Many people misunderstand felt: they think it's just another fabric. They are mistaken, fabric and felt require completely different manufacturing processes.

The making of a felt hat differs from all other fabrics because it requires a myriad of short animal fibers, difficult to work with because of their natural tendencies to "creep" and because of their ability to twist when handled in hot water or hot steam. Felt is known to be a durable fabric because the fibers that compose it are bound in all directions with other fibers. Other fabrics are made of fibers, twisted into threads and woven by hand or machine. As they are woven either at an angle or in parallel lines, they are vulnerable and can tear along the lines.

What is felt made of?

Felt hats can be made from wool felt (inexpensive) or fur felt (medium to high price depending on the fur). Rabbit fur is used in the majority of fur hats. Hare fur is of better quality, it is often more or less mixed with rabbit fur to produce hats in a more affordable price range. Beaver and nutria are synonymous with higher quality felt hats. Muskrat fur is also a used raw material.

By "fur, we mean the underfur of these animals, not the long curly hairs commonly called fur. It is only this underfur, with its interlocked fibers, that guarantees the strength of the felt hat.

How is the fur used to make felt harvested?

To harvest the down, the long hairs are plucked or sheared. The remaining underfur is then chemically treated to remove microscopic barbs, resulting in higher quality felt. The felt is then removed from the skin or, more precisely, the skin is removed from the felt. To remove this skin, a machine takes it off and cuts it with knives. The extracted fur retains the shape of the skin, and its quality varies depending on where it is cut: cheeks, sides, ribs, etc. It is then packed in paper bags and stored. This fur is called "long stock, while trimming fur is called "short stock".

How is the fur refined?

The bag of fur is delivered to the hat maker. It then goes through several stages of mixing and refining before it is ready to be used in hat making. After blending, the fur takes on a marbled gray color, the original color is barely visible.

The mixed fur is then "blown, meaning that the coagulated fur, air, and dirt are removed. The material then resembles a thin sheet of gray cotton, soft, light, and fluffy.

What are the stages of felt hat manufacturing?

The making of a felt hat is done in two main stages.

First, the fur is worked into a large loose cone, the cone is shrunk and incorporated into the finished hat. Forming the cone is the key to a successful felt hat. This process is done in a special machine. Imagine a vertical, cylindrical compartment, and inside this compartment, on the floor, a copper cone about 3 feet high, point up. This cone rotates slowly. It is perforated, and an exhaust fan, located below, sucks air and loose fur, in the chamber, towards the cone.

After being pre-weighed, the fur is sucked down by the fan and deposited on the rolling cone. The fibers are deposited in fragile layers: they can be brushed with a finger. The operator carefully wraps these fibers around the cone and immerses them for a short period in a vat of hot water. This is when felting begins: the hot water slightly shrinks the fibers which are knitted into a thin layer of felt.

The layer of felt is removed from the cone, its size is then much larger than that of the finished hat. It is so delicate that it must be handled with extreme care. Then begins the shrinking of the felt.

The body is folded, soaked in hot water, and rolled with pressure. From time to time, it is opened, checked, and if everything is going well, the process is repeated. Under the combined action of hot water and pressure, the fibers shrink, tightening into each other until the body reaches its final size. It is so tightly felted that a strong man cannot separate it.

This work is hard and laborious, especially since it must be done quickly to avoid damaging and deteriorating the felt. This task can be performed by machines, but most often it is done by hand, especially during the first critical stages when the cone is large and delicate. The machines used resemble "roller" machines such as large washing machine wringers. Hand rolling is mechanically simulated: the bodies are wrapped in cloths and passed through rollers soaked in hot water.

Besides the beard or felting locking technique, there are several other interlacing and plastic techniques. According to the interlacing theory, the fibers are constrained together due to mechanical manipulation. The plastic theory holds that the fur becomes temporarily plastic at higher temperatures, and accounts for the well-known greater ease of felting in acidic solutions and the need to use hot water as well. Probably no felting theory accounts for all the facts.

A rough shape is obtained by stretching: that is, the finished shape by blocking the crown and edging the brim. The stretching of the crown is done on a machine on which the cone is placed, and stretched by metal fingers. The finger "massages" the tip of the cone, and pushes the felt into the frame.

The shape of the felt hat is imprinted by wetting it and pulling it over a wooden block. The final shape is solidified with steam and an iron. The wood for the blocks comes from American poplar, chosen because it has no grain or hard streaks. When the cone is pressed onto the wood, it doesn't imprint its texture.

The original block is made by hand, then copied by machines. The hat maker must have not only a set of blocks for each hat style, but also blocks for each texture.

The adjustment of the hat's brim is called flanging. The edges are ironed flat and cut to the desired width. They are then curled, placed on a wooden edge, ironed again, and finally dried and pressed while remaining on the brim.

Between the time the body is made and the final shape of the hat, the felt headwear receives several treatments. It is dyed, this meticulous work is usually done in the early stages of felting. The brim is impregnated with just the right amount of shellac stiffener to make it hold in place. Finally, the entire felt hat is rubbed with sandpaper several times depending on the desired fineness.

Finally, the felt hat is carefully cut, lined, and sewn with leather on the band.

The production of a felt hat is therefore a slow and meticulous process that requires about fifty steps. This is why it takes an average of seven weeks to make a hat. This manufacturing process is passed down by hat makers, from generation to generation in the greatest secrecy, with the right balance of machine and hand work determining the quality of the finished product.