The Cowboy Hat is not just a fashion accessory. It’s part of the American culture. This hat is worn for dress or work, in all weather conditions, and by men and women alike. But, before you can wear your hat and be proud of it, you need to know how to take care of it.
The beauty of a hat depends upon its overall shape. With regular wearing, your hat may lose its shape. Felt is a soft material that loses its shape under a small force. This is why it becomes essential to shaping your felt cowboy hats. There are different effective methods to perfectly shape your felt cowboy hats for felt hat lovers.
You no longer have to wear your out-of-shape felt cowboy hats when you can now easily shape them perfectly with these simple methods. Here’s a rundown of the five best methods to shape your felt cowboy hats.
Using A Hot Iron
This method is simply inexpensive, easy, and efficient. It is the best method that a person can use as it is fast and simple. Place your hat upside down on the iron plate and press. Keep it on for a few minutes. The soft material gets heated before it is pressed. You can steam or iron your hats with this method, depending upon the fabric of your hat. Hot ironing is the simple answer to queries like how to shape a felt cowboy hat.
While ironing a felt cowboy hat, make sure to set your iron at a normal temperature compatible with felt material. Next, check the heat settings of your iron and set it at the Felt setting. Now while ironing, make sure not to press too hard. Instead, iron it gently over the edges and the brim to get an even shape.
Heat Gun For Even Finish
A heat gun is a very common tool used in the manufacturing industries for shaping objects from metal to leather. You can also use these hat guns to shape your cowboy hats in the best way around.
You can use it on your felt cowboy hat to shape it in several ways. First, you can heat the areas of your hat from the underside or the top. Heat guns work great on leather and other types of materials but have a limited effect on felt cowboy hats for various reasons; though you can still use it for shaping your hat, at most, only certain shapes will come out with this method.
Freeze Your Hat With Ice Water
Sometimes it is necessary to change the shape of your felt cowboy hat without damaging it, and there is no better way than freezing. This method might sound counter-intuitive, but this helps you shape a hat without causing any damage to its fabric.
You can easily do this; just place the hat upside down in an ice-filled container for about 15 minutes, depending on the type of hat you have and the shape you want. After that, remove your hat from the pan and let it dry. It will keep its new shape after drying up perfectly.
Steam Hat In A Steam Iron
Steam is a fast and efficient tool that can be used in numerous ways. It is a very popular method among hat makers. You can easily steam your hat in the steam iron to get out a perfect shape. There are several choices of steam irons available in the market, and choosing the right one depends on the material of your felt cowboy hat and how many different shapes you want to get out of it.
If you have a leather hat, it would be better for you to use non-stick iron for this purpose, and if it is felt, as with any other kind of felt fabric, then any type of iron should do. Doing this with a damp towel is the best way to shape your felt cowboy hats. Some people even use plastic bags with holes to shape their cowboy hats.
Using An Ironing Board
The three-legged ironing board is used in shaping hats. Place the hat on any of the three legs of the ironing board and press over it with a damp cloth for 20 minutes or so. You can also shape your felt cowboy hats if it is wet. Just press it with a hot iron directly would result in damage or further deformation to the fabric of your hat. However, leaving it like that overnight would do the real magic for you. You will have perfectly shaped felt cowboy hats for sure within no time.
Loved finishing hat always looks good on you, regardless of whether it is a cowboy hat or not. So be creative, try various methods and enjoy the process of shaping your best-felt cowboy hats. You can find easy and interesting methods to shape a hat at home and save your money buying a new hat.
