How Custom Cowboy Hats Are Made | Nathaniel's Custom Hats

i'm kirby allison and i love helping the well-dressed acquire and care for their wardrobes join me as we explore the world of quality craftsmanship and tradition [Music] hi i'm kirby allison in today's video we traveled to georgetown texas just a small town located about 30 minutes north of austin and here we're going to be visiting with one of texas's great hatters nathaniel fun maker of nathaniel's custom hats what i love about western wear is the richness of quality craftsmanship and tradition today we're going to see what we can find at nathaniel's custom [Music] hatters nathaniel hey great to see you how are you thank you for having me you're welcome and it's a privilege to be down here thank you of course been following you on instagram for a long time and have you seen all your amazing work with kind of western hat making and uh you know we're down in austin visiting lee miller later today and yeah i thought we'd run up to georgetown and see what you've got here thank you thank you for coming yeah now talk to me a little bit about kind of like your background nathanael and how you got into hat making i mean they're beautiful hats but you know here you are in georgetown i know that earlier you told me you're native american yeah i mean how did you get into hat making and how did you get here to georgetown it's funny you say that and i often share that with customers i always like that little connection of sharing my little world and someone sharing their little world but i'm ho chunk indian it's a tribe in wisconsin it's about 12 000 tribal members okay um i lived there until it's five and then my folks moved away so i really i grew up out west from albuquerque to santa fe to colorado to california um but wound up of all things landing in mencas colorado there was a hat maker there and that's where i started making hats never thinking or wanting really to own a shop okay in five years i bought the business and and kept making that but how did you get it i mean so there you are in this small town in colorado yeah you know you've kind of got the background i mean was there something about craft that drew you to hat making or was it just kind of it they had an opening and you just again it was not a not a hat per se but it was art yeah i mean i look at this as art absolutely whereas a lot of a lot of hatters i know are really good craftsmen um really good with equipment i'm on that other end of like of art of like i want to look i always tell people i want the hat to flow how do i make it flow so if you look a lot of my shapes at the end of the day i really make them flow and that's my theory yeah the sculpture of it the sculpture of it you're right yeah and so often i'll my wife would says hey that hat has to get shipped out because i'll shape it and shape it and shape it and shake so i'm never satisfied yeah that's kind of the mark of a true artist you know they're never fully satisfied with their work um i mean one of the things that's really interesting to me about western wear is the richness of the tradition yeah here in america and it's uniquely american western ware and of all of kind of you know the crafts here in america i mean western ware still is really as vibrant and as rich today as it was yeah you know 50 you know 60 70 100 years ago yeah i mean do you find that through your work i do find that and i love that i think i i'm fortunate i connect i've connected already with people like-minded or i'm into a good saddle i'm into good pair of boots i mean so i think that already i have qualified customers of like no i know what this is i know it's not cheap yeah i know i have to wait i know your hands are going to make it so those are good things for me yeah absolutely and what about the oral tradition of you know really hat making i mean it's really passed down from craftsperson to craftsperson you're right you know so whenever you were learning i mean just like charlie dunn you know todd lee miller yeah you know you had this hat or you know who was the town's hatter yeah you know teach you yeah no i know the the first one uh perry lewis um was the originator um a cowboy still probably in his 80s a good guy steve king who i learned from was a second hatter and i knew steve so there was a little personal connection there i me and him planted trees and cut timber for years to go okay wow so when steve took over for perry steve called me and said hey i need help so at that time i didn't know a thing about a hat so yeah this will be fun i thought of it as the first the thing he said was like we're going to make hats and the thing make just like excited me like i'm in i'm all in and so coming in and when i teach somebody i want that same person usually that knows nothing it's like if you're a craftsman i could teach you and mold you how i want to mold you yeah i think those are the best yeah and just making still excite you today like it did backwards first it totally does i i told you earlier though um i sold a hat yesterday and with the to a woman and what i love is this connection of well here's where i'm gonna wear it here's what i do you know all these little factors that to me add up to a great hat um so i'm that person that people always say how good i am but i'm better at listening and taking an intel and then i execute that so from what you're telling me here's what i'm gonna yeah say we should do yeah it's like a skilled doctor it's like you know it's like listening to the client and understanding how they're gonna wear the hat yeah where they're gonna wear the hat who they are yeah and then kind of taking that combined with all your experience and then making a recommendation i think that's that's a totally true statement after 26 years i've learned the wrong way after a thousand times like don't dictate it let let me let me hear from you it's like here's where i live here's what i'm here's where i think i want to wear it or i have people that have never had a hat that say i want a hat but i just look stupid in a hat and i said well it's the wrong hat and often they'll say well what is the right hat and again i will say i don't know we're going to talk and at the end of our conversation maybe we've come up with something for you maybe not but i don't to me what sells my hats the billboard is somebody wearing my hat and happy with it and usually a story of like well me and nate got together we talked about this and here's what we came up with yeah yeah that's interesting so where do you start that conversation maybe you get this beautiful wall of hats and i think one of the things that can be overwhelming about hats is there are so many choices and options right so how do you begin to narrow this down yeah into something that results in the perfect hat for a customer i think often again my little brochure has like 10 styles okay and i like that so but what happens when i say that is you can't be lazy you can't just show 30 hat pictures and someone to pick i go beyond that and go okay so you like my classic gus well here's what i'm going to tell you about that classic gus so often it's a face shape yeah or a or a chin shape or a that i'm going to help determine or yeah we talked about that earlier i mean this is our palette to work with so to me again you can talk to 10 hatters kirby and they may they will all have different theories of what good is and i love that i think it should be that yeah well what do you think makes i mean i mean do you feel like a hat really is um personalized i mean does a hat grow more personal the longer you've had it it i i say it totally does i say it's my buddy you know um often i'll sell a hat to somebody um i sell them for six hundred a thousand so usually when someone orders and gets their hat from me they say well this was my once in a lifetime thing and thank you so much and i thank them and they leave and then a year later they walk in the door again i go okay now now you got me so what else do i what else would i look good in what else um and often what that entails is somebody that buys a cowboy hat cattleman whatever usually a cattleman style hat and then they come in and go well i've been watching your videos and you've made a lot of fishing hiking hats well well i fish a lot i hike a lot i hunt a lot so what's that hat so to me that's that cool part of like it doesn't have to just be a western hat it could be more of a urban e fishing hiking onto i i ship i ship hats probably three days a week so i send a lot of hats to new york okay a lot of hats to chicago a lot a lot of hats to san francisco i think big towns there's something in their dna of like even though they may have never gotten a hat it's like they walk in here and go wow yeah they're selection there's yeah so talk to me a little bit about kind of the elements of quality i mean what differentiates that six hundred dollar hat from the thousand dollar hat yeah and then what is it that gives hats their durability and longevity because that's another characteristic of a well-made hat as you can write for the rest of your life i think when you say that there's no there's no shortcuts to quality and there and i wish there was as far as i make as far as me building it there's not i have to put in a long time to iron it to cure it i cure a hat like four different ways so again a lot of people say well my hatter does this it's like that's yeah that's fine i mean i'm just gonna say what i do i don't take a shortcut people pay good money six hundred thousand i'm very into like it's still the best hat i could make yeah when it's not i need to move on and go do something different are you still making the hats the exact same way today as you were you know 25 years ago you know what i added was a blocking machine which i showed you earlier it's a 100 year old machine blocker that has 60 fingers that helps me block a hat start the process and that actually makes a better hat than me hand doing it so i hand did it for 12 years and if i still had to hand do it because it's so much force on my elbows and shoulders i would have not been doing it by now yeah it's an interesting way especially in hat making where you know the tools that you're using are still controlled manually yeah right but they help you actually do a more consistent product and really do a better product uh without really compromising any of the quality that's a complete a good statement and a true statement and if used right because you could you could do all that and not take the time that it takes like my plater i'll leave it in a plater for about three hours most guys are like 10 minutes so i again i don't want to say that as and i'm the best i'm this i this is just the way i do it it's the way i want to do it yeah what's your craft it's my craft correct yeah and i mean i want to see someone a year later and going oh my god so i told you this story it's like i just felt like this was an overpriced hat now that i've worn it for a year oh my gosh this is of the highest quality when i said this is a gentleman telling me this when i sit down and eat dinner i sit down on my couch watch tv and my hat's still on my head when i don't even know it's on my head so yeah what is it i mean can you describe what makes that hat you know so great i mean is that something that can be described does it just have to be experienced no i think it's it's something that when i say that i do sand them with a few grits of sandpaper i do hand finish them i i think a lot of that hand work is is a big separator with other hatters of like i'm still gonna i'm still gonna take the time to do that and and i again i'm not gonna i'm gonna say too i wish it wasn't that but i think we know that in any manufacturer it's like either you could make something of high quality which will take a lot of time or you could just slap it out and be done yeah it's like a bespoke suit i mean all the handwork and everything that goes into the product it's not handwork for the sake of handwork and there's an actual reason behind that that creates a an in product that's got more integrity that's more comfortable correct it's longer lasting you can be rougher with it and it's still going to look great you know which gives it its durability and longevity you find in hat making that it's really much the same it's totally the same especially to me um some of my my women hat wears one's a equine trainer okay um and her hat i'm gonna say 20 years later it's crusty and dirty and she's bought new hats from me but at the end of the day she says people always love my old dirty nathaniel's hat that i will break out and wear and and often my because she films too often my film crew is like let's try that new hat and and after they start filming and go julie go back to your old hat yeah yeah well there's something to be said for the patina i told an old hat right because a hat does develop patina and it is meant to be worn yes and it should be worn and it shouldn't be you know protected or cuddled in such a way that it doesn't begin to show its age yes we talked about that earlier too i i will distress a hat but i don't like to i mean i want it to be worn where the more you wear like mine has a little rip on it this is a 15 years old and it's thinner it's all it's it's it's pure beaver fur but it's to me again it's like this is when it starts getting good yeah yeah well and it's again it's a lighter colored beaver right so it's going to show kind of that age and the patina yeah more easily than say a black hat would yes um but you know i mean it's kind of part of the beauty in it i i often laugh and say i me being native american and darker skinned i'm already that distressy frumpy so i need some good lines for me so usually a cattleman or or this i call it a 512 cattleman it's it's kind of a offshoot of an open road stetson okay um it just gives you good lines and i need that i mean look at you i love that and and i put a suit on and i just don't feel right in a suit even though i will wear a suit once a while but i think again to each their own we want it i want it to be too back to a hat i want it to be yours how can it be yours because when it is you're going to wear it yeah when it is you're going to tell 100 people about me yeah it's my billboard it's my walk-in billboard yeah can you walk us through some of the different styles of western's hats because i'm not as familiar yeah as i am with say you know some of the more kind of classic english hats yeah you know you said cattlemen you said you know hiking fishing yeah you know what are the i mean kind of help me understand that taxonomy of basic kind of fundamental profiles or styles okay so let me grab a few let's start with a cattleman because we because i keep saying accountable so typically this is very very common and this is really what i make the most of okay this is this i call a rodeo um so i have my name for it because i make them but it's also known as a cattleman huh okay so this cattleman could be so many different ways again that's where i'm not a lazy person i will take the time to talk about we want a tighter pinch we want a wider brim we want a um this particular one is whiskey okay this one is a mixture of beaver and rabbit um this is what i sell the most of because i wear one i wear a blend okay um that's 26 years old so really that's amazing so this is you know this is for you know the cowboy you know that's on a horse you're gonna give him his sun protection you're right you know that kind of iconic western hat it's a very basic yet it has great lines you put you put on a pressed shirt with this you're done because that's what most cowboys are it's like jeans maybe a nice shirt to go eat dinner somewhere and a beautiful hat yeah yes they're accessory but there's so many so we go to from that to a um another cattleman that so this is i i call this a west texas it's also a rodeo style but this is more of a west texas wider rim more shade i mean so there is really a function too and we're binding the edge here the edge i always tell people this in its day was a brush scarf like we would wear out hats like mine is ripped but this was a brush guard this was invented to be more of a this will last longer with this ribbon edge on it and i guess if the ribbon got torn or ripped you could replace it you took totally yeah and yet it's kind of like now it's an adornment now it's more of a hey look at that yeah yeah let's see what how does this work with my am i ready for the rodeo and yeah it's like you have to stand pretty tall to wear that that's usually usually for a wire wider shouldered guy okay i mean mine aren't even wide enough i think you even got to be a little wider at that that's a beautiful hat i mean you're you're the big boss in town and whenever you walk down the street then we go to what i call a lizard head so a lizard head is more of a fusion western hat this is not a stodgy western hat this is a little more contemporary okay um and what what makes it a lizard and is it the way that it is i um i carried on the style from who i learned from um lizard head after lizard had passed so there's rock formations that look like this so that's really how the hat came about and i think it came about from we met a navajo indian that styled his hats like that and it was like oh hey that's kind of a cool style yeah so when you're a maker it's like we are always looking at styles and going oh i could i want to do that too it has a dip so the dip means the the drop from the front to back with the curl on it so kirby put that one on let's see you in this one yeah again to me it's like we're going to keep going through and i could talk all i want but until somebody just puts one on we don't know yeah so yeah are we getting closer this is silver belly this is we're getting closer silver belly is the color of it but the quality again is telling you what it is so the furrier i use is in tennessee he makes rabbit fur 50 beaver 50 rabbit or all beaver so rather than telling people it's a 20x or 30x the bummer is with this x rating it's so diluted that yeah i just sell it as what the what it is yeah well and beaver of course is more waterproof yes what's going to get more waterproof it's a natural fiber so it has a lot of breathability um so those are the good things and then we move on to what i call classic gus where this is an old western period style hat this is a known as a montana crease to a yeah it's a definitely a statement hat yeah um yeah and again not for everybody we gotta find the right person so again through me talking to somebody you start to discover and start to listen and start to hear like here's what they're telling me so this definitely makes a statement another beautiful hat that's a it makes a statement what about i mean so these are you know all kind of classic traditional western right yeah what about the hatch you're wearing where does that kind of fall into so this really was a lbj um open road stetson original that i i fashioned after a 80 year old hat i found okay um at a second-hand store and so it has a little what what we we call mule kicks and everybody calls them mule kicks and then it has a bricktop to it and this is a bricktop yeah so so pinched in the front or kicked in which gives it a real nice kind of shape there i like that you know and what i like is it's not a big proportion hat so i think that it could be worn with a lot of stuff versus a cattleman that's and this is a western hat as well yeah an incredible patina i mean look at this the way that this is aged to me it makes it way better to me it makes it yours yeah um so we go from that to a i'm going to show you what i call a rio grande and this hat is also known as a gambler mostly a woman's hat the gentleman that i learned from got to make a few movie hats so this hat was made for will smith in the movie wild wild west oh really yeah um so i can't claim it i did build them but i can't claim that it was a movie hat i did but it was a you know something when i was apprenticing yeah that we got to make the hats for really you guys made the hat for them and that's amazing that's another beautiful hat another beautiful hat usually a woman's hat and again it can be done in a number of colors because it's handmade so it can be done in a number of proportions so that's a real grande i go from that to a hat i make off the net now we're going to start to fuse more of a this is called a guide and this is i want you to put this on kirby so this is more of a starting to fuse into a more of an urban-y style again it could be modified to anything and again that's how i work it it's like well let's start talking about it yeah this one fits um quite nicely that's a i think a seven and a quarter so you're close to a seven and a quarter yeah so if i go from there to a hat i call an explorer and i do not have an explorer but i built this one yesterday so this i'm gonna i'm not done with this yet but it will be a fedora eventually it'll have a little curl on the brim and let's get you to put that on kirby this is more of again even more urban-y i'm kind of going down the line of my theory of like so this was this will be more of a fedora but it also is a an explorer okay so i have a gentleman his name is josh bernstein he hosted a show called digging for the truth for about six years and he wore the explorer style okay yeah yep kind of the namesake of how i named it okay yeah but really that is my take on a fishing hiking hat really okay yeah it's beautiful so this is you know this is close to fedora yeah really yeah that 60 year old ribbon really gives it a good look of nice small fedora yeah it's a beautiful kind of bow so the story is i i've been sharing this on instagram these are probably 60 to 80 year old hat blanks that i've had in storage who i learned from hadaman storage who he had learned from probably had these in storage so these created this hat and is this uh beaver rabbit this is probably a wool rabbit mix is what i'm guessing but i'm a pretty good guesser yeah um that also produced this one this is a 512 cattlemen that i'm wearing but that made that was made from these as well i just built that and i built this yeah let's see how is on you yeah and again kirby it's like you put it on and i'm i myself no yes or no but it takes the individual to do that yeah so i i reserve my opinion until we start talking about it okay interesting i'd love to know kind of what's your opinion of what you've seen so far for me not to peg you not to i don't want to rush the process but i would just be interested in terms of kind of your your sense or your feel if you if right now you said so make me a hat i'll be back in a few months to pick it up it would be probably either a granite or a steel like a gunmetal explore to a fedora okay um for you yeah and often by the time i'm done talking to somebody they're like well you've already you've already helped me so much so you make it you make the hat you put the hat band you want on it and it's usually pretty right yeah yeah well that's what i think that's funny about working with artisans is that you know at a certain extent or to a large extent they're artists right and if you try to micromanage their creativity too much i think you miss out on so much of the magic of that process and the collaboration it should be a collaboration but i feel like at the end of the day the best results are whenever you really defer to the artisan or to the craftsman and let them really create something that's that's their manifestation or of what they feel like is going to really be unique for you i i love that take and often you'll see like a a car maker designer when somebody a custom potential customer or a customer says well i've loved what you've done so far so just keep doing it and i'm i'm the happiest when somebody says that because i could then go okay well let's get a little crazier let's get in crazier what does that mean i'm very i'm very traditional i think kirby what you i don't know you haven't visited a lot of hatters but i'm more traditional we we talk about a distressing or a burning of a hat i just not i just don't like that and i think a lot of times at least when you're a hatter a boot maker you're true to i'm going to be true to myself i'm not going to just go okay just because you want that i'm going to do it yeah yeah that's great um anything else here maybe one of my other hats i just did this so this is a a velour hat body um it's a lavender color so this is when they say velour it's gonna have this rough finish and it's not meant to be sanded so this is more of a dress weight hat so when we say dress weight the the interpretation of that is half the weight of a western okay so these are about nine ounces this is about four ounces so typically usually for a woman usually not going to be born to write in usually more of a fashion fashion thing yeah about town city hat yeah yeah totally it's beautiful so to me because i'm floating a lot of orders i don't get to do like i just did this last week but and that feeds me as an artist but usually i'm going from order to order ordered order yeah you're not making stock hats really i'm not i wish i could i wish i had the time yeah oh that's great well so i mean is all the work done here in the workshop all the work so i buy i buy a hat blank this is a hat blank um but from there i build it i block it i iron it i sand it i put a sweat band in it i shape it um so but the beginning of all that is the fitter so the fitter i use i use a tape measure but i also use an 1895 fitter it's called a conformiture it was made in paris france it was made to fit top hats okay so people always ask me are these just for show nope i use these every day i really use i've used this one for 20 years i've used that one for about two years now so these are a french fitter that sit on your head and punch a little card into a miniature reading of your head shape and i have thousands of them i have them from 20 years ago where somebody says you use that crazy fitter on me do you still have that measurement yeah i still have thousands of them so that allows you to really personalize the fit of the hand even more totally wow again a lot of hatters a lot of older hatters um the original hatter said i would never have that and so my theory is like well why not if that makes a better hat if that makes a better fit so you do have to to me um i'm always after that how can it be better yeah this makes it better yeah and how does that how's that at what point in the uh making process does that that fit come into play i mean because the blocks like you know the wooden blocks i mean you're not changing the blocks no you're not you're it's not like a you're not carving a custom block no for someone we are not could you i mean is that like in shoemaking could you take someone's conformator and carve a custom block that's like exactly their head i don't i don't but what i do what i do is there is about i think four blocks that i use and when i say four blocks i mean i have sets of four blocks and they're different tapers so for a blockier head like me i have a rounder face and a blockier face being native american it's kind of round my head shape so i i use something for my personal hats that is more blocky and then when i make more of a long oval hat that's that's more oblong i will often use a more tapered block okay sometimes i tell a customer and sometimes i don't i just do it yeah so this is helping you really kind of select which block is appropriate it totally is and yet there's times where people go i have a long oval head but i wanted this so you again you have to listen to the customer and make sure that it's what both of you feel is right for the individual but back to the conformer if you're more oblong what you're going to see is often people will put a hat on and it looks like a mushroom on them but once it's built to their head shape it frames their face shape so much better so this goes back to the fact that a lot of people feel like they don't look good in hats but it could be just because they're not wearing it totally could be that and often that is the case in the nut yeah interesting well let's i mean can you show us kind of the workshop and yeah what you have working back there yeah should we go back and check it out that'd be great [Music] so this is my production [Music] mega workforce of me this so this is where it all happens so we start with these are blanks so this is my next run of of of orders so i have gone this is 100 this is probably a beaver yeah so this is a pure beaver but it's still quite rough yeah and that's where it doesn't have that smooth finish we're gonna sand it with four to five sometimes six grits of sandpaper again until i do it people always say oh you should write a book it's like well it's hard to write a book on instruction when every blank is different yeah and that's why it's such an oral tradition teaching someone like you just have to be shown and you have to feel it yeah because often people will go well i just did what you did but three grits like yeah but that was this yeah yeah so where do you take this next so we've got the blank so we've selected the color you know you've collected the material right you know rabbit right blend or beaver so i'm going to go back now to the to the blocks i have about four sets of blocks and it's going to be blocked the block it this is the blocking machine so the blocking machine is pretty amazing in that the hat gets set in like so let's see if it'll work today this is probably a 80 year old machine and some days it some days it has a mind of its own so the fingers are now pressed in and i i get the steam rolling everything's done with steam so this is the steam this is running about 40 pounds of pressure the steam is hosed in and blows up through here so once that's done once this is set then we set in the proper block and proper meaning the right height for you the right for the customer the right taper so this will set in like so and i'll i'll start i always have a ruler um i just start measuring like okay i needed a half inch off of here i need it all the way down for a cattleman i need it so there's different hat again there's different heights there's different tapers so this is the starting of the hat and so this is creating that kind of first basic shape correct the actual uh correct people always say so when does that form of the final finish come in when does that come in it's like well when my hands come in to do it so that's at the end i don't have a form i i but i've committed to a crown height a brim width so yeah so it gets done with there that's the blocking machine once that comes off it goes in my plater my plater was a dry cleaning piece of equipment that i me and a a guy i always called him the mad hatter um the mad scientist because we and he invented that more or less he made me a plater so a plater is a curing device that cures the brim so once the once we pulled this out it's pretty tight and what happens is people always think well you pulled it so hard did that compromise the fur no it did not at all it it's actually compressing it even more to help it be thinner and tighter yeah okay so that's my again my theory of like oh i want it thin and tight and light yeah kind of like pounding out the outsoles you know bespoke shoemaker will spend hours just pounding the leather outsole to compress it yeah down and it is one of the things that creates the durability again of a bespoke shoe you end up resoling it less often that's amazing yeah isn't it and yet that didn't happen by going i need that to be that no i got to do it so yeah yeah okay so that's kind of again curing the hatch or you know really kind of uh compressing um the brim yeah compressing the the felt the felted for its felted fur the crown height then it sits on the plater and then i bring it back over and let's pull this out so then i bring it back over to um the crown iron so we could if we could imagine this has now been set to a crown height i'm going to come over and set it on this machine which is about an 80 year old machine it sits in cinches down like so and then this is a weighted um a weighted iron so that iron you will see so you can imagine a hat blank sitting on here but now we're fully committing to again it's ironing it and compressing it kirby so again it's helping me make a thinner stiffer lighter weight yeah and this is where you start really kind of you know it's the finishing you're giving the finesse to the actual hat body versus that real rough you know kind of felted blank correct because the felt has a lot of texture but you know like the hat that you have has a beautiful kind of smooth clean finish and this is kind of this is a process this is really starting and setting it and and this is like so many things in making whether it's boots or saddles or if it's not done right to start it just gets worse and worse and worse so it really neat you really need to um take your time and it's like this is right okay do that this is right okay start that so once the once the uh the crown is ironed so that now the brim is flat the crown is open i set it on my workbench here my dirty workbench and i start to now here's that process of starting to put a head shape in it so that's long oval this is a regular oval and so that's not done at the blocking process so that nope that's done now by hand so in starts our part of making it to somebody's head shape okay yeah so here you're taking in the reading from the uh so i will have that order in front of me with the conformer reading so i'm going to mimic that so often you will see like this i had started with felt spacers i started their wider oval in the back long longer in the forehead now some people will just manipulate it when it's ironed and done i'm gonna i'm that nut that's to take my time and set his head shape from the start really that's amazing yeah so this is totally based off of you know kind of the unique measurements of that particular customer correct because this is what creates that comfort yes where it just slips on and holds perfect and holds that shape yeah um that's cool so this particular so this part of it it's a half inch bigger than your head so say you're so i think you're 22 and three quarters you're seven and a quarter okay so this part will be 23 and a quarter it'll be a half inch bigger because at the end i put in the sweat band so theoretically a sweatband's going to take up a half an inch really for me for my again for my theory yeah so so once that's ironed into it and then i go in my sanding booth and i sand it so my sandy boot is pretty basic this is um again three grits to three grits to um five grits of sandpaper so this is a pretty basic i use a porter cable sander okay yeah and you just sit there and sand i do wow and this is i think it's funny when you meet a lot of makers there is one part of their job that they like the least yes this is what i like the least the gentleman i learned from his biggest tip to me in all the business and all the hat shop and he said get a good set he's like i'm losing my hearing because i never wore a mask i never wore yeah yeah and i'm sure you've got small particles flying all over the house is this hooked up to a vacuum this is i i run this little vacuum over here when i when i start so this is not in my last shop i actually had a whole sanding booth okay so this is a little compromise to have a showroom yeah that's a hard thing it's hard to balance a showroom and manufacturing and how much time do you spend sanding i mean is this this could be a 15 minute it could be a two hour really what is the beta there we can't dictate that you do you're not gonna dictate it you're not gonna whatever the hat needs you want to say 10 minutes yeah usually it's not not and it's like murphy's law when like i need this to come out great very quick it's not gonna yeah and i see some like measuring tools in here and some brushes yeah so these are the brushes um they're horse hair brushes um so i'm often going in and brushing them and working them and then this is a quite a treasure for me this is a 80 year old brim cutter so there is new brim cutters now but i really love i love this the older the better yeah i love the brass i mean look at how that's changed right i mean this was built you know to last more than a lifetime yeah so you this is 80 years old this is at least eight i would say 80 years old not older who knows right and i mean and and often it's it's getting a little loose here it's so this is where the owner operator is good that somebody else is going to just come and go ah this is and it's like no no no no no no don't touch yes i really know like in taylor's shears never touch another table right i mean we have scissors that this is for thread this is for paper this and so that's the hard thing to just bring somebody in again and just see them throwing this around like oh no no no please don't do that respecting the tools yeah that's great so this is and yeah whether you're traditional or not you better take care of your machine your tools because if you lose them you're gonna lose you're not gonna be able to do it yeah so this is great so then you know you've sanded and then how close to the end of the process are you at so i've sanded and now i will put in the sweatband so let's go back to this little table here and i'll pull out a i'll pull out a sweatband so here's my sweatband so these are sheepskin um they were once lamb but these have my name my logo on them so these are um have a concave mist to them so these i cut to size and sew in yeah that's beautiful yeah so part of the sewing in is the the the sweat band is lipped over so when i say left over people always say how how do you not sweat through your hats so quick it's like well i let my sweatbands over where it doesn't allow sweat to go through so easy okay so you're wearing more of this leather rather than this threading yeah and that's not that's kind of your approach right yeah i mean that's the part that's another separator of like i like this tag in here the boss's hat no not for sale i mean i just take again not to rush to process like do it let's do it right if we're going to do it we do it right you know this is such a beautiful hat i mean such a great patina and yet this is my newer of my two hats yeah everybody always says you must have 20 hats well what happens is i build a new hat for me and i'll sell it off my head often literally but that's why you get that note it's probably more of a reminder for yourself it's often somebody put it on and go so what what will you take for this yeah no no no what about the so what's your other can you grab that for me yeah let's grab the other hat that is more of my buddy so this this one is like if we say this is a perfect fitting hat it's really not because it's not as old as this one is but this is 25 years old amazing so after i think my first year of hat making the gentleman that owned is like well you might as well make you a hat so this was the half 25 years yeah 25. and this i mean again look at the patina on this i mean this is um yeah it's pretty gross but it's it's my grossness yes but it's my buddy i mean you will see i even i know when somebody puts on a hat usually how old it is but just by them putting it on but i wear my hats a little lower i want this i want this feeling when i sell a hat i don't dictate that i will i will tell somebody but i say but you're gonna find out through wearing it through putting it on it's amazing that that hat will decide and you just gotta roll with it so this is kind of that and it kind of settles right i mean it settles you break it in how many you do you have to break in a hat the same way maybe you break in a pair of shoes you do but the conformer really is the starter that conformer is amazing that and yet i've never used it for me people i say so you always use that conformer effort no i've never i never have because i know i'm gonna wear it hard i know through sweating in it it's gonna conform to my head very quickly very quickly yeah yeah you have to wear it yeah and i want to wear it yeah i mean even i don't have a lot of hair but even when i had hair i loved hats my dad loved hats my dad was a hat freak so i blessed or cursed i was yeah blessed very first with that too picking it up so from that point um from that point we would i would go back to the conformer so we should probably go to the conformer again a little bit okay so this was a cutting of lauren's um from the conformator this sat in like so but it was a it was a flat three by five okay so then just sat on her head the needles opened and punched a circumference reading of her headshot and then you um you cut it out i cut it out and it's amazing kind of how irregular that is it's like you let me turn it around and you know but and it is but yet it's amazing when it's the miniature and then it blows up it looks pretty normal once it's blown up okay yeah um but i can see how just a normal shape yeah wouldn't really get this like this would yeah i mean this is pretty amazing yeah and uh and 140 years old i mean it's amazing old technology yeah cutting edge at the time again people say is there something new i was like i don't know i don't care i don't care to know yeah this works i mean this works and i love it yeah so where do you take this then at the end of the process so at the end is this is loaded into what's called the familia so the vermilion is the other part of the conformatory so this is like the cousin of this like you know this season of pasta this is the executor of like it executes the miniature to the template an adjustable template of the headset so you put this in kind of right here i see a little register pins are there and then that's what allows you to then customize the block yeah you know and how many pins does this have i think this is like a 40 pin okay yeah so that's a pretty high degree of resolution right yeah and people always say so just get another one of these well you don't go to granger and find one of those so are these wooden those are wooden correct just goes to which it is brass adjustable pins um i've had this redone the the screws and the gentleman that did it said he had to custom find him so we talked about the conformer a lot so let's measure you really let's see kirby that's exciting i'm gonna i i say i'm gonna torture you but it's not it's not really torture so this old thing i'll need your help so kirby pull it can you grab it and pull it down it'll expand perfect perfect perfect it's kind of where i would wear it yup kind of where you would wear it i like it so let me color off is that it that is it for that part of it so we're also going to get a tape measurement of your head so if we can you guys you can pan in on kirby's head shape he may not want you to i've had a lot of foot tracings but this is the first uh conformer of the uh of the head that i've had isn't it and it's it's amazing it is what it is too yeah yeah so let's get a take measurement too so this is a double check a very good double check and we were right about your hedge size i was telling you 22 and three quarters you've got an eye and it is about 22 and three quarters yeah i do and so that all informs kind of this measurement right it does it will reinforce it so let's write i will 22 and three quarters could be allison so i have boxes full of these so from over the years and you cut it out so that part gets cut out remember a long perforated line and loaded into the vermilion yeah so there we are look at that so what type of block would you choose it's um you kind of vary between a regular oval and a long mobile um probably more tapered for you okay yeah um that's great we'll save this one yeah you know and uh you know we'll have to put my name on that totally that wait list i know i'm always fishing for customers so i have one box that somebody's at the end of a sale or a possible sale i just can't do it right now and i go well i know you're interested so let me measure you and i'll keep it on file so it's kind of like fishing we're just like yeah so that way you just call it in let me set it set the fish you know sleep on it right call me back next week like anything it's an investment how i sell a hat i will tell people this is an investment yeah because i mean 25 years later yeah it's a long sales process you know because uh you know the product is an investment but you know if you invest in quality yes and you take care of it it'll last forever i want it to be that too i don't want it to be me i've never jammed somebody in a sale or like quickly no you think about it because you're going to wait nine months yeah well you know i think one of the things i love again about bespoke and about handmade having gotten to know the maker for having come to visit him in georgetown having kind of received a tour of the workshop to see how he's making it right i mean that makes the product the end product all that more meaningful and then a product is being built that has longevity and durability yeah so it accumulates more and more meaning over the years until you get to the point where you've got something that you've been wearing for 23 years yeah right it's beautiful you know it's stains you know you know provoke memories you know where you've worn it you know provoke memories you remember the person that made it for you that to me is the pinnacle of bespoke is not just a better product but a more meaningful product i'm i'm on the same page and i love that as in i rarely talk to somebody about that part of it but it that's totally that to me is the essence i mean you know it's easy to go find a cheap hat that you know you'll throw away in a few years yeah you know but the problem is is one day you know you're left with you know just a bunch of meaningless objects that you know haven't uh built any memories or meaning kind of in your life i say this again a lot of people will buy i will have a closet full of four hats often my sales happen this way they like the shape of this one they like the color of this one they like the look of this one they like the but at the end of the day they'll end of the day there were none of them because they did i want all that in one well i like to think i'm that guy like i could i can fulfill the one hat the one that's beautiful that's amazing that's my little when you can't rush the process no it takes time again i'm going to say i wish you could i can't well thank you so much you're welcome nathan thank you such a pleasure one day i'm going to have a hat from you yeah please what an honor to be able to step inside nathaniel's custom hat shop and to have nathaniel show us his incredible craft and passion that he puts in to some of the finest hats available anywhere it really is so encouraging to me to see quality craftsmanship and alive and really thriving even if it's in places that you might not necessarily expect it like here in georgetown texas he's doing some absolutely incredible hats and i have to say that i think i really look good in one of these and hopefully we'll be able to add one soon to my wardrobe if you're watching this channel for the first time make sure you hit that red subscribe button in the upper right hand corner so that you can learn whenever we release new videos and of course if you haven't visited kirbyallison.com please do so it's how we support this channel and there you'll find the largest collection of luxury garment care and luxury shoe care accessories in the world as well as other great clothing accessories like this beautiful sovereign grade necktie and pocket square i'm kirby allison and i love to help the well-dressed acquire and care for their wardrobes while exploring the world of quality craftsmanship and tradition thanks for watching

Channel: Kirby Allison

Views: 30,122

Rating: 4.8805971 out of 5

Keywords: cowboy hat, hat making, cowboy hat fitting, nathaniel funmaker hats, hats, handmade hats, bespoke, kirby allison, hanger project, documentary, georgetown texas, travel, travelling videos youtube, mensware, menstyle, western wear, cowboys, cowboy, leather hats, leather cowboy hat making, leather, how custom hates are made, custom, custom hat making, texas, country, country fashion, mens style, wardrobe, crafstmanship, tradition, hat makers, best cowboy hats, hat shop, how hats are made

Id: TPz40TGsM4w

Length: 53min 54sec (3234 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 07 2020