Felt Cowboy Hats - Part 1

good morning dwayne here dry creek wrangler school uh going to try to make another video this morning before i head out now um this evening we're loading up the horses two trucks two trailers horse trailers loading all the horses all the gear heading up about a two hour drive up to taylor park going to set up camp this evening and we're going to start tomorrow three days of riding up there gathering about 1200 head of cattle up in the mountain pastures finding them hunting them down gathering them together and then pushing them up higher up in the mountains on another pasture so we'll be riding monday tuesday and wednesday after we get done riding wednesday we come in tear a camp down drive the two hours back here and then thursday we go out and we ride and gather and push cattle here closer to home so i'm gonna be out of pocket for about four days not gonna have cell service not gonna be online not gonna be able to answer any questions or comments or anything for a bit so you guys just keep the house warm while i'm gone okay and i'll be back when i can and uh so one want to just make a a video this morning on on a subject probably the number one question i've gotten across the spectrum and and it's on my hats it beats just beats me i just don't understand it uh but i've got a lot of questions a lot of comments on my hats and so i just wanted to do a live video this morning on cowboy hats okay so we'll address some of these issues now to start with i don't know if you know it or not but a felt cowboy hat uh is made out of fail um now there's felt is fur or hair not a hide not not a not a skin but where the hair is shaved off imagine getting a haircut and you got hair in the floor okay loose hair all right not a skin so that hair is taken and putting through like in the old days it was boiled but i think maybe a lot of times they use steam or something and what that does the process it takes that hair and it matches it mattes it all together and it creates a a sheet a material and that's what felt hats are made out of now they're felt can be woolfell uh beaver fell you're australian uh like your akubras your man from snowy river hats they're made out of rabbit phil okay um and so but your your cowboy hats your cowboy hats your american cowboy hats are made out of a felt and the best material the best fell is beaver okay and so but their varying qualities and what they do because beaver is expensive beaver felt the beaver fur it's it's not as plenteous and it's expensive so they'll mix wool felt with it and so when you buy a cowboy hat and you look inside and it says 3x 4x 5x that is an indication of the percentage of beaver versus wool that's in that felt it's a mixture okay now it's each hat company has their own uh a 3x of 4x that's not a hard and fast it's this percentage and it's not like it used to be a 4x beaver felt hat used to have a lot more beaver in it than a 4x beaver fell hat today um so when you go to buy a cowboy hat a felt cowboy hat you look at the x the more x's 3x 4x 5x 7x 10x 20x the more x is then the higher percentage of beaver which means it's a more a higher quality hat okay so so uh i've been asked about recommendation on brands um like everything else in this corporate world a lot of your hat companies are all owned by the same there's a a holding company corporation that owns a lot of them uh stetson resist all bailey those are mainstream if you go into a cavenders or something um it used to be back in the day when i started out i would not buy a hat any less than a 4x and i was poor um always been poor um and but i'd buy a 4x and the 4x held up there was a noticeable difference between a 4x and a 3x hat and for a working cowboy the 4x held up for a while and and today i still would not recommend that you buy anything less than a 4x if you're actually going to be wearing it out in the way they're using it all right um but a 5x a 7x is definitely better and uh so so let's let's move on into my hatchet oh you guys have been asking that and i've got so many questions on this hat right here this brown hat the one i wear in most the videos now i've been asked several times who makes it what is the style what is the um the shape well this hat was made by rand's uh custom hatters out of billings montana my wife and i had been in alaska i'd been riding in alaska and i had a really really good summer i'd hit a pretty good lick up there and so as we were heading down i had gotten a job offer in florida to go down and work on the race tracks as an equine vet tech um and so we were heading to florida from alaska in in our air travel trailer that we were living in and as we came through billings montana i saw the sign that said rand's custom hatters and my wife said when we passed it she said no you've got to turn around and go back you've got to go back you've it's time you got to get a real half so never argue with the wife happy wife happy life so always do what i'm told so i turn around went back and uh went in there and and they measured they got this deal they measured all my head and everything and and they kept that there's a there's a file card in a file cabinet there in rand's hatters now with all my specs on it and so i found this hat this hat is called the ts3 now the ts stands for tom selleck it was the third style of hat they had custom designed for tom selleck it didn't look anything like this um i ordered that hat and then left and they built it and sent it to me and and i tried to wear it for a while but the shape just didn't suit me so i reshaped it so the shape is a a dwayne knoll uh shape for a rand's custom hat um it's a hundred percent pure beaver there's no wool in it so it's it's a it's a true 100x hat and uh and the color is natural beaver i didn't want something that was going to bleed out i wanted the actual natural beaver color so that's that's what this hat is uh it's the nicest hat i've ever owned it took me a lot of years of working to get to the point where i could do a hat like this so i custom uh ordered it i got black the black silk lining inside and they got my name in it and i i wanted the ribbon around it and i got the ribbon bound around the edge and it's just it is a nice hat so um those folks took good care of me and now if i get another style hat that i want i can call them up say i want this hat and this color and that will pull my card out and they'll build it to fit me it's pretty cool deal um so that's rand's custom hatters out of billings montana uh this hat here okay this hat is just like that hat this hat looks nothing like it did when i got it in fact a fella gave me this hat and when he gave me this hat it was a standard cattleman's hat like you go into wherever and buy a hat and it had the standard cattleman's crease you see it all the rodeos and everything and he gave me the hat um this hat is a resist all and it's a 7x and it's a real heavy fail this is a really good hat oh it's been through this is this is my everyday working hat right here um but i took the hat home and i don't wear that style hat um and so i lined up i took a a leather i got a two i'll do some leather work and i got a tool that cut strips of leather well i took that tool and i cut the brim down i cut about a quarter a little over a quarter inch off the brim and i completely reshaped it and a few days after that i ran into him and he looked up and he said hey man where'd you get that hat and i said it's a hat you gave me he didn't recognize it so this is kind of a gus crease and i stuck a mule kick in the back just because i wanted to i curled the brim up i like the brim curled up some it kind of holds the shape it also tends to run the water off in one spot instead of just all over everywhere but again somebody asked me the other day what brand style and shape is that hat it's a dwayne oil shape um how do i shape my hats i'm going to tell you how i shape my hat but i'm not going to tell you this is what you need to do i'm going to give you the the the correct answer um to start with then i'm going to tell you the dwayne answer the correct answer is if you want to reshape a hat take it into a um a store that sells hats and they'll have a steamer and you go in there with them and and they'll steam the hat and they'll shape the hat for you okay that's the correct way to do it now the dwayne normal way to do it is i go in the kitchen and i find an empty coffee can or a milk jug or something uh and i take it in and i put it in the shower and i set the hat on top of it so it holds it up so the brim does what it wants and i turn the shower on cold water same as rain and i go off and leave it until the hat's thoroughly soaked and it so the the felt will get soft you don't want to shape a hat if the felt is not thoroughly steamed or thoroughly wet because you'll break the felt you'll get a crease in it and that's not coming out and then once it once it's good and wet then i'll shape it the way i want and shake the worst of it off so it's not dripping down mama's carpet anymore and then i'll wear it and let it conform to my head that's how i shake my hats that's my answer for how i do it but my answer for you is go into a hat shop and let them steam and shape it the way you want that way if you wreck your hat you're not blaming me for telling you how to do it okay so that's uh that's what that is this this hat i got on my head this is a bailey it's a 100x pure beaver felt hat i got it off ebay it was brand new in the box it was a a discontinued there was something about it they had punched a little hole in the band so they knew it discontinued and it was 200 but it's a it was a which is a good price for 100 beaver hat again it was a standard cattleman shaped hat and uh and i wore this hat for quite a while that's why it looks beat up um it uh but i reshaped it myself into the pinch point and then curled the brim and so it's this is a lot lighter weight felt than that one so it's cooler in the summertime and so um what else can i take a hat is your signature a hat it's your signature i had to tell folks a lot about you um if you go into a shop and you buy a hat i can tell i can tell some things about a guy that i'm riding with by his hat um and you that's why when i did the the video on etiquette you don't touch a man's hat never touch a man's hat because a hat becomes an expression of who he is it's personal it's a and so when you touch a man's hat it's not just an appendage out there um but it's it's him it is a an expression of who he is and uh so to start out with if you're looking at buying your first hat i i honestly it's not worth spending the money to buy anything less than a 4x it's not worth it they will not hold up they won't keep their shape get a 4x do some study before you buy a hat find a shape that you like and if you have to get that shape off of a movie that's okay um you know uh the gus the gus from own some dove is a shape that's become popular these days um and uh you know or if you grew up in the old um roy rogers set you know and you like that hat then wear that hat don't don't don't get a hat that looks like everybody else's go get it and get what you like and make it they'll cut the brim down if the brim if you see a hat and it's it's the quality you want it's the color you want and it's the basic you want but the brim is a little bit too wide and the shape is a little bit not right the hat shop they should be able to cut that brim down for you and shape it the way you want okay um so anyhow not a real deep not a real deep video this morning but i just i wanted to do it i wanted to to address that so um if you if you like the content click like if you haven't subscribed if you do that for me um click that little bell so you'll be notified when i put up content right now this time of year it's hard it i really am scratching to find the time to get content every three or four days um but if you'll do that for me i'd appreciate it and be you be you you got to do you and that includes your hat okay so we'll catch you guys later

Channel: Dry Creek Wrangler School

Views: 71,650

Rating: 4.9845347 out of 5

Keywords: cowboy hats, hat care, felt cowboy hat, mule kick, Gus crease, reshaping hat, steaming hat, signature, Rand Custom Cowboy Hats

Id: lUuxrqumXGQ

Length: 14min 53sec (893 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 18 2021