We have now explained the making of the bare body, as it is called, of a plain hat, in as concise a manner as the subject will permit.
There are yet a variety of qualities and kinds of hats requiring a variation more or less in the manipulation of the article, so as to suit a fanciful and fastidious people. For instance, the quantity and quality of fur, or an entire change of materials, produce quite a different appearance both in the look, the wear, and the price of the hat, while the form of the cone must be changed to admit of a high or low crown, or of a broad or narrow brim, &c. &c.
All FELT hats, of whatever texture, nature, or name, must have undergone the above described operations, and many have to go back a second time to the plank kettle, and there undergo an additional teasing and ducking in the scalding water. For instance, all those destined to receive a coat of fur upon the outside finer than that of which the body is made, and constituting the flowing nap of the hat, which is merely a kind of veneering or outside plating, which will shortly be described.
A very good hat is made having a flowing nap that is raised directly from the body itself. Thus when the body of such a hat as has been described is about half wrought up at the kettle, it undergoes in another department the operation of shaving, by which means the projecting coarse hairs are all cut off, after which, on being returned to the kettle, the hatter, with his stiff brush, card, and comb, raises a nap upon the half solidified body, which is constantly improved as he continues to manipulate with the brush. The hat is, at the same time, reduced in its dimensions by the operation of felting until at the conclusion when it appears of the desired size, fully felted, and adorned on the outside with its rough and flowing nap, which otherwise would have been smooth and cloth-like. This is called the brush hat.
[Shaving.]
In the process of fur felting there is a constant tendency for the strong straight hairs of the body to work to the outside, so that whether the hat is designed to receive a BARE finish afterwards, or to get a plated cover of beaver for a nap, those bodies must all undergo the operation of shaving. A workman sits in another apartment with one of them, when dry, spread over his knee, and with a long bladed sharp knife in hand, sweeps rapidly over the surface, cutting off and depriving it of those deteriorating superfluous intruders, after which the hats are forwarded to the stiffening department.
[Stiffening Process.]
The bodies of the hats now made, dried and shaved, and the spirit water-proofing already prepared, being thinned, or reduced to the proper consistence, the hat is laid upon a flat sloping board, and the stiffening is put into it with a stout brush, and soaked to that degree of saturation known only by experience, the brims receiving a double portion for extra stoutness, and are then set aside to dry.
The alkali or inferior kind of stiffening, when used, is likewise diluted, and applied by immersing the body fully into the prepared ingredients already described, and either wrung out with the hands, or passed a couple of times between a pair of rollers set at a proper width, which determines the quantity of proofing absorbed by the hat.