How to make a Great Character Hat 

Now that you've seen our great hats we're sure you'll want your own Custom Hat - so what are you going to do with your old one? It'd be a pity to relegate it to discard. Our solution is to rotate it out and make a great Character Hat. First you want to make sure it's at least a 5X fur-felt - or know for certain it's weatherproof - because if it isn't - you'll end up with a blob that used to be a hat. 

The Hat to the bottom left is our re-worked character hat, fashioned from the Dirty Champie (left) by following the suggestions of Tom Mix - the first true movie star and one time performer in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

Years ago I read a story about how Tom Mix used to crease and work all his custom hats himself in the shower. So I decided to take his advice and am more than pleased with the results. The amount of time it takes is up to you. I had the Ellsworth fashioned in less than 5 minutes - then a further half hour fine tuning the look. The steps I went through are pretty simple.

• Find a picture of how you want the hat to look and print it. Make sure your hat lends itself to the picture of your character hat. You'll never make an old Boss of the Plains design look like an upcurled cavalry trooper. Study the picture and make sure you know how you want the creases and brim shape to look.
• Make sure the hat you're doing this on is weatherproof BEFORE you start.
• Take off the hat tband - it's only held on by a little glue or a stitch or two. Or if it's too tough or just a satin cloth with bow - leave it on.
• Start your shower - put the hat close at hand, but not in the shower.
• Grab your hat and away from the water put your hat on. This is done so the inside lining stays as dry as possible. Step under the shower head and let the warm water completely soak the crown and brim - when water starts to soak thru the underside - it's wet enough.
• At this point all I did was step to the back of the shower and work the hat with my hands. This is what I did.