Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire A thread on hats

Well damn...

Thirty years in Texas and I had never owned anything like a cowboy hat (for want of a better term) or sombrero. A lot of it was my mode of travel: A Tilley hat or a t-shirt tied around my head like an Arab had it covered, both of these will scrunch away to nothing for transport.

This past week I took possession of a simple wool-felt hat, a hat blank with a simple liner, $40.



For those who might not be in the loop, wool felt is the cheapest grade. Rabbit fur felt is next followed by beaver felt.

The superiority of fur, and especially beaver fur for hat felt being what drove much of our Frontier history.

Took the wool-felt hat blank out for a test drive today. Three-hour afternoon hike, 100 degree heat, black wool-felt hat blank on my head. Late July in South Texas.

All I can say is that the R-value of wool must be phenomenal: No unusual amount of heat transmitted through the hat. And perhaps some evaporative cooling, when I bent down to tie a shoe, sweat dripped down in abundance, running down along the underside of the brim. If anything COOLER than the Tilley hats I have been using forever.

'Spect all them vaqueros and cowboys knew what they were doing after all

From my perspective, a $40 wool-felt hat blank is just about ideal; it has that essential wide brim, wont break the bank if lost, and at that price can be worn out and replaced indefinitely.

For a working, using, everyday hat, are the beaver and rabbit fur blends worth the money?

Any thoughts appreciated.

Birdwatcher

Tilly hats be the way to go..........I don't own a cow-me-boy hat either.

You're in good company with that hat...!

I still have my Dad's Stetson. It is a 10X Beaver, that was given to him back in 1957 when we moved to Kissimmee Florida.
Fits me like a glove.

Beaver felt is king. Some might remember a while back I posted a thread on the best type of water proof hat (wide brimmed). I was even looking into oil skin for a hat. What I settled on was a leather hat, Aussie type cowboy hat. Large brim, but not as wide as what you'd expect for a cowboy hat.

Well, I still love that hat. Use Mink Oil on it and it's water proof. But it's warm in the sun. Keeps it's shape very well, but this one has a wire brim. I suspect without that wire, it wouldn't.

So on to beaver. The key is to either get VERY lucky with a pre-made hat that happens to fit perfect, or, the right way is to have a hat maker make one for you. When/if you get fitted, account for hair. I shave my head and if I go too long between shaves, my hats don't fit just right.

Anyway, beaver is cool in the summer and warm in the winter. And about as water proof as you can get.

There are much cheaper ways. The wool blank you have being a prime example. And my leather one being another. But, unless ya lose it, the beaver will last forever with minimal care. So, YES. Worth every penny. But a lot of pennies.

BWer, nice hat. I wear Tilleys (cotton) but also a "Tilley-style" KOM (wool) hat in cold wet springs or falls.

By the way, will be leaving for Ghana Thursday. Will say, "hi", to all your old friends. Ball cap with a syn neck gaiter there.

Your blank is actually pretty close to what real cowboys wore. They didn't wear what we now call cowboy hats.

It looks like it's from the Swampman collection.

Snork!

The original cowboy hats were dual purpose. They served to keep the sun off in the summer and in the winter, they'd use a bandana to tie the sides down over their ears. The modern cowboy hats sort of keep the sun off (they turn up and lose their ability to shade) and they're worthless for keeping ears warm. They're a lot more cosmetic than useful.

Since baseball caps got popular, the skin cancer rate in farmers has skyrocketed.

I'm jealous! Oughta be the about the peak of the rainy season IIRC, never mind showers, just go stand outside in the evening

And here's hoping you don't meet Giardia, my formerly close companion

Speaking of giardia, you MUST take the time to eat at a real chop bar by the side of the road (hey, 3 billion flies cant be wrong ). I highly recommend fufu, groundnut soup and dried tuna; a meal sent by Onyame hisself straight from heaven

Only thing possibly even close to better is banku, groundnut soup, and dried tuna.

NEVER use your left hand to eat, and remember, real men drink the soup after all the fufu/banku is gone (hey, long as you dont also drink the water afterwards you'll be fine).

Speaking of drinking, you MUST also go to a roadside akpeteshie bar (after all, your driver will prob'ly be driking there too). All liquor is poison, akpeteshie (tranlates to "kill me quick") makes no bones about the fact.

The trick is, pretend its water and drink it like you were thirsty, that way by the time your body reacts it'll be too late. Try and sip it and you're lost. Dont worry either that some guy coughing his lungs out just used that same glass, the akpeteshie will take care of that.


For the REAL akpeteshie experience, ya gotta wake up in the dust of a village street with goats and chickens looking down at you curiously as they pass. But I doubt you'll have the time to delve that deep into the local culture


And speaking of drivers, and akpeteshie, NEVER ride in the front if you aint driving. Stay any legnth of time and you'll see the remains of another head-on collision aboout every time you take the main highway.



Take photos, in a perfect world posted on a thread here.

And dont forget the paregoric



Safe Journey,

Birdwatcher

still beats hell out of a ball cap or bandana head. my stetson beaver is downright cool once it gets good and soaked....really doesn't give up much to a straw in the summer, and much nicer in the winter.

Ya, I bought it specifically with an eye to pre-1840's Texas.

Only thing gonna be hard to find is, to what extent wool felt was used in that time period.

Birdwatcher

Bird, you are probably the only hombre on the planet that could get nostalgic for Ghana.

Naah, thats 'cause you aint seen it like I have.

About the friendliest place on that whole continent. As an Obruni (White man) pretty much ANYWHERE you go in the 'sticks you have a roof, a free meal, and all the akpeteshie and/or palm wine you can handle, free of charge.

This from people who literally ain't got a pot to pee in.

What you'll get too is a bunch of good conversation, thats what Ghanaians do.

You might get that beaver hat a bit dusty tho'

Birdwatcher

Take that felt hat, soak it good, and wear it - air conditioning, and it'll conform to your head perfectly. DO NOT remove until relatively dry. DON'T leave in the sun, as it will shrink. WHEN (not if) you make that mistake - submerge again!
Mark

Keith:
I trust that other than endorsing Tilley hats that this finds you and yours doing well this fine.

To the original query Birdwatcher posed on whether or not a larger number of X's thereby indicating more rabbit or beaver fur in the hat makes it last better, I'd say it depends.

I've talked to Okanagan cowboys who managed to kill a good hat every couple years, but then they expose it to a lot of snow and rain, which combined with the sun here seems to speed the deterioration of the felt up somewhat.

When I first moved here I ran a Biltmore hat that was mostly beaver as I recall and it lasted almost a decade before it began to really fall apart. The dye held up very, very well however and the color didn't run one bit over the years.

By the way they are a Canadian made hat - Canuck plug inserted here.
http://www.biltmorehats.com/aboutus.htm
http://www.smithbilthats.com/hat-history

The Biltmore near the end of it's run, when I was just starting out on mine - or so it seems.


My good wife then bought a Smithbilt for me - these made in Calgary - and it's been a pretty good hat although the band is getting pretty ratty and the felt on the crown is showing some cracks. This hat is a lower grade felt with more rabbit fur content, but the dye is holding very well in it too.

Somewhere in there I picked up a wool felt Bailey for hunting too and though the felt itself has proven to be very tough, the original brown dye has faded into an olive drab green.

For a $100 hat, it's been pretty good really. Here's me and the girls having an Okanagan style tailgate party a few years back now.


Before I leave this, I've got to share a cowboy hat story with you all.

A buddy of mine used to kid me about my cowboy hats and tell me that the "real cowboys" that he knew all wore ball caps. I'd always respond that a well fitted felt hat tended to stick on the four corners of my noggin - the product of German ancestors no doubt. Having one's hat stay where it's supposed to can be one of those wee things in life that are quite comforting at times or so I've found.

Anyway in the fullness of time he decided that he wanted to go on a horseback hunt with me and so we did.

After his ball cap got brushed off by a Ponderosa pine branch for about the fourth time - necessitating his having to ride back, dismount, rehat and then remount, I slid my mare over beside him and casually noted, "Most of the real cowboys I know wear ball caps......"

Would you believe replied with a less than charitable two word phrase?

The day ended OK for him though in that he shot a nice two point mulie with a unique rack that tasted just fine. Here's the scanned shot of me finishing packing up his mulie - note my hat is still in place.



Hopefully that information was at least slightly useful to someone out there tonight. Thanks for indulging my ramblings as I unearthed some hat memories from days gone by as well.

All the best to you and yours this week Keith and to you too Birdwatcher.

Dwayne

Never been to big on covers.

Guess I have to get use to them in a few months.

I wear a baseball cap most of the time. About the other 20% of the time I will wear either a stetson or a resistol.

I'm pretty sure there are some members here that wear these after reading their post, fill in whoever you think they are on your own.

As it should be.

I like ball caps, gotta a Twins cap on right now and I look uber cool. I look like a complete idiot in any kind of 'cowboy' hat. lol