My New Lid

[Music] i am a little bit tired still we've been in fort worth for now eight days i think this will be the eighth day and it's a move-in day we're packing up and heading out of here there's still a few rigs left but not very many amy you ready to see some new country yes i am it's it was a good time here we had a lot of good time here at the patriot and it was a lot of fun but it's time to move on to the next one the next one is four or five days from now and we've got some uh fun things that we're gonna do in between now and then or at least fun for us we'll take you along first stop is well we're not going to tell you you'll just have to find out in about probably the next probably the next uh frame that you see but it's about an hour for us to get there but we'll show you what we're doing here in just a minute but here's a couple of scenes of us here's a couple of us scenes of us leaving the equestrian center here the will rogers that's where we're at [Music] this place was crazy crazy busy for seven or eight days but it's uh pretty much a ghost town now everybody's packed up a few of them still packing up and leaving they're coming after equipment the tractors left this morning free fruit right there they're here to get panels the cleanup here would be a little bit crazy after having this many people here but they've got a big crew and they're working on it and uh we're gone for another year so hope you enjoyed our little bit of coverage that we gave you from being here okay so we are in the hall of the resist all main offices we've got matthew range with us and and here right here hang on matthew here we go right there there you go how you doing matthew has requested that he's not on camera very much so you might not see him any more than that right there but we're going to go take a little look hey what are you doing you actually have an office in here i do you sit at a desk once in a while every once in a while wow okay good hey you want how good of a tour how good are you at giving tour you're better dang it you coming with us come on come on joe come on yeah you have time what's up man i will say at the very beginning this factory was built in 1938 this is the original this is where it originally ended this seam right here and then in the 60s we doubled capacity and so that's all new over there yep so right now we're in packing which is holy cow this is like nothing like i expected this place is huge hello hello so oh we've gathered our hats everywhere hey does it get real hot in here in the summertime okay it gets really warm really warm all right okay so this is our body room um basically that we're the only company that makes our hats from raw fur to a finished hat so hey in a nutshell we're going to watch a video here in a second we're probably not going to show you but in a nutshell every hat that is worn today like the hat amy's got on the hat joe has on the hat that i have on they arrive looking like this the plant in longview so here's the video history we'll tell you a little more about it after we watch this transforming raw fur into finished felt hat shapes in our longview body plant the only such factory in texas the process of felting dates back thousands of years when nomads discovered how to turn animal fur into a special type of fabric that we now call felt the felt blankets they made would keep them warm and help them endure the elements today our hats are made the same way crafted with workmanship and attention to detail that is established on a history of quality and performance we're the only american hat manufacturer that makes our own bodies we work with first suppliers from all over the world to make sure we get only the best quality fur because you can't make a good hat unless you have good fur raw fur goes into the picking machine where it is cleaned small spikes and combs mechanically separate dirt debris and the long guard hairs from the fur raw fur goes through this process multiple times once it is cleaned we weigh out a set number of ounces of fur which goes into the blower the blower is like a giant mixing bowl rabbit wild hair and beaver are blown and mixed together different qualities of hats denoted by their x quality rating require different ratios of fur the higher the greater fur the higher the quality once it is cleaned the fur mixture is channeled into the forming chamber which holds a three foot tall perforated stainless steel spinning cone this is the beginning of the hat body creation process a thin blanket of fur is deposited onto the cone a damp burlap cloth is wrapped around the cone to hold the felt in place it is dunked into a hot bath which makes the felt begin to tighten the fibers start to fuse together at all angles forming a tight bond that is virtually indestructible fabrics made from threads that are woven at 90 degree angles or in parallel lines can be ripped on those lines felt fibers interlock with each other in all possible directions forming one of the strongest textiles in existence after the felt body comes off the cone it is folded run through hot water for shrinking and sent under pressure rollers when it is the right size about half its original height it is dyed a custom color ready to be blocked and finished into a hat which we do at our garland factory many hands touch each individual hat ensuring that each one is crafted with the highest standards and meet all specifications fur felt hats are light soft and able to retain their shape and endure wet weather they're also versatile at home in the rodeo ring or out on a saturday night wherever you go you'll know that your hat has been made with pride care and a whole lot of history under its brim all right that's pretty amazing right there this looked just like that at one point that's that's crazy so this is how big that that cone that they showed that's how big that felt body starts out as it's from top to bottom from top to bottom it's that big one of these one of these was that at one time and then we're shrinking it down with hot water and friction shrinking it down some more so it's it's it's not ever cut off it's just shrunk down just the heat and the friction yeah it makes those felt fibers felt together tighter and tighter and tighter until it gets to this size this is going to turn into a cowboy excuse me we're going to turn this into a cowboy hat hold this little apple dumpling gang ready are you ready for this i gotta i'm gonna let me shape it here real quick put a little shape on it jughead how's that look huh i'm gonna do the rest of the tour just like this like you need to be in the corner because you've been bad just kidding so my hat looked like this at one point in time yeah and there's a couple extra steps to get it like that sure that's crazy not dry no i'm good come on okay here okay here now finished product looks a lot better hey so check out all these hat bodies these are hats waiting to go through the process of being shaped into the type of hat that we know today there's a all kinds of different colors and uh they're all the same style right now which is just kind of this big old floppy hat this is the ski block right now the hats are like small medium large uh there's threads right here these are blocks they're gonna size them to an exact size six and seven eight seven and a half seven or three quarters etc the way i try to describe it to like non-western people is you don't buy like small medium large beans you buy these with a certain team a certain length cowboy hats are the same way their size uh by eight basically so they're gonna take the body i don't know if you can see over here [Music] put it in there those brass fingers are going to grab them to a specific size like 30 seconds 60 seconds here we go so now it's inside to a specific size mom's going to come up he's going to take it out it's going to mark the crown line and where the center of the hat is and then it's going to come over here we'll walk over this way so once they get blocked they come over here we get we add chillax to them on on dark colored hats we use a natural shellac from the shellac on the whole outside of the hat outside of the hat well no it's on the inside and then she's going to punch it out you'll see it i'll throw that hat backwards now right now it's backwards it's wrong side out yep so she's dead and chillax to the and crowd on the inside yeah and then right over there she's gonna punch it through that hole right there so here we're adding a shellac to the brim of the hat if we didn't do this all year has to be floppy um on on pastels we use a synthetic shellac because it's clear it doesn't add any color cast to the hat um so here we're like i said we're adding to the brim and then if we go back this way over here you can stiff right yeah and this one is not nope come over here and you're going to air dry for two days the reason this is all empty right now is cause monday we had a full rack friday they they dried over the weekend so they went in so by by the end of the day this will be full again or it'll be halfway full and tuesday it'll be it'll be full and these will come off wednesday you during the whole time you'll see those like uh those borders they stay with the they stay with the hat the whole way through hey how many how many people worked right in here approximately 100 yeah 200. so your hat's touched by about 200 people 100 sets of hands to touch a cowboy before the other thing i would say like on that video over there that we watched earlier uh one of those machines from 1892 a lot of our machines are very old and i like to tell people that uh if your grandfather wore a resist doll the same machines that made his hat made your hat today the only thing that changes the first so after they dry they get another block put in them okay so here's here's the crown iron it's the same idea as the brim plate it's killing the belt yes sir same idea all these run on like one one gear basically i can't even tell you how old this machine is hey so 12 minutes he said it takes to iron a crown down and he's just checking it out probably a lot of it's still too and that drill just goes works its way all the way around right okay so this is rodrigo right here 20 years this has been his domain right here he's the master of iron and iron crown this job right here has been his for 20 years how many how many days of work have you missed in 20 years how many days not too many every day every day yeah they put a piece of rope on every hat before it goes on the ironing machine over here and what that is is a a little piece of rope to hold the band line and it's basically just a piece of nylon nylon rope it's got a little knot tied in the end of the dough that pulls it down watch this here's rodrigo right here so after uh crown ironing and rim playing they come here where they're gonna get stained yeah after a number of rounds we go to the sandpaper right here and it moves on to the next thing same thing same idea starts with claw and then move to uh sand paper all right that's the sanding process right there to sand the hat smooth so these machines are original to the factory they're over 80 years old the company that made them as you can imagine is no longer in existence so we have a machine shop on on-premises where we machine parts to keep these machines running hey so we're getting a little closer to a hat looking like this but we're still a little ways away from i think um stick with this one you know back in the day everything used to come with open crown you go to your hat store you pick what you want you buy it and then the the owner would crease it how you want it eventually we uh we moved to three creek crowds and that's right here where it's got a mold already in it actually i'm going to that one exactly so there is a mold for this callum increase of every size from six and three quarters to eight basically what's the biggest half eight six eight yeah we've got our cody johnson crease we've got the the new rv profile i mean there's different variations of that cattleman crease each one of these buffalo's doing just kind of your typical cattlemen they move right behind you and they're doing something completely different he's doing they're doing like a little pinch front kind of a fashion hat crease but every one of these stations is doing something completely different all across the factory what what would you say yours is uh so my hat started as an open crown it's kind of just a like a modified cattleman very very similar to just a traditional so cutting the brim we cut the brim down and then they get beveled right here this is where you either get a four inch brim a four and a quarter four and a half it's cut there and then it comes right here and it gets there's sanded one right there once again this is kind of uh she kind of goes by her judgment call on how smooth she'll do it she'll go around the top side and he's got to flip it over and do the bottom side this is where her skill comes in she's got to make a judgment call on whether or not it needs to go one more round or two more rounds or whatever you have it so all right so now we're at middle inspect for a middle inspect the the hat's basically a shell it's been sanded it's been sized um and it's been creased basically it's coming here to middle inspect where they're going to inspect it make sure there's no problems with it if there is an issue they're going to send it back to get fixed if it's something that can't be fixed we're going to take it and turn it into something else like a self-belt band or something we're just not gonna throw it away and what if it passes it moves on to get trimmed out check it out we're getting closer getting closer to the finished product you like this you style are lying you like it yeah will you put it on here come on that joe right there he's too cool for school he is not going to put anything on that does not look classy like the way he looks right now [Music] [Music] you

Channel: RodeoReed.

Views: 17,299

Rating: 4.9493179 out of 5

Keywords: the rodeo video, flake out, rodeo video, cowboy, cattle, cattle farming, ranching, ranching cattle, family, trucker, roping, roping cattle, roping pen, resistol, resistol hats, resistol cowboy hat, wrangler, wrangler jeans, cactus ropes, horse, horse video, riding, horses, blue rooster cattle co, roping steers, boot, arizona, snowflake, cowpunchers, liberty safe, national ropers supply, bio mane, Reed Flake, Amy Flake, RodeoReed.

Id: EPl6d6KtTPA

Length: 25min 14sec (1514 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 18 2021