cone hat for rain or sun

[Colin Krusor]

I'm very pleased in general with my Marmot Mica jacket but the hood is a bit ill-fitting and doesn't turn with my head at all. I have to pull it aside with my fingers if I want to look to the side. I'm contemplating making a lightweight (silnylon?) conical hat (like the sedge hats traditionally worn in southeast Asia) that I can wear instead of the hood in the rain. Such a hat might be handy on hot, sunny days as well.

Has anyone attempted making a hat like this, or used one on the trail?

[Stuart Allie]

Joe Valesko at zpacks.com can be seen wearing a cone-style hat in some of the photos at his web site. I believe he mentions in one of his thru-hike reports that it is part of his sleep system (!) so it might be a bit of foam mat cut into a cone shape. I'd be curious to know the details of the construction too, so if you ask Joe, please post his reply here :)

I did look around the web briefly a while ago for plans for the type of hat you describe but didn't find anything useful at the time. I didn't look very hard though so persistence might be worthwhile.

Good luck!

[John S.]

http://www.ehow.com/how_5061408_make-hat-out-oak-tag.html

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/make_a_coolie_hat.htm

[KC H]

I picked up a Kavu Chillba sometime ago and love it. It has become an integral part of my backpacking equipment. It keeps the sun and rain off you like an umbrella and stays nice and cool. They are ugly, and you get a lot of strange looks from people on the trail, but I wouldn't trade it.

http://www.rockcreek.com/kavu/chillba-hat/?ref=RCO_googlebase

[Kevin Beeden]

> I did look around the web briefly a while ago for plans for the type of hat you describe

At its simplest, it's a circle of material with a sector cut out, and the ends overlapped; play with a piece of paper.

To cope with the problem of the hole that his might leave at the centre, don't cut out a true sector (i.e. radial lines from centre to edge), but only cut to, say, 10mm from the centre. Then form a fold to the true centre to allow you to create a seam right up to the centre of the conic hat.

Silnylon probably won't hold its beautiful conic shape like a traditional hat does; no stiffness…

[John Nausieda]

Chinese and Japanese hermits , travelers, and fishermen are way ahead of us.http://asianideas.com/bamboohats.html.
I was amazed at their bamboo rain capes too in Chinese museums.

[Adam Kramer]

paper bag lantern is a great example…been used forever in japan, last week was the first time for me.

[D G]

I like this one.

[John Nausieda]

Fight Zatoichi , Fight is still my favorite, but another great hat .

[Colin Krusor]

I think a bit of closed-cell foam mat, as Stuart suggested Joe at zpacks might have tried, could be a good way to go. A lightweight bit of nylon rod around the edge could help stiffen the periphery. The rod could be pulled out and used for a bivy hood or tent vent and the foam mat could be unfolded and layed down as part of a sleeping pad.

I was also imagining all kinds of other, mostly preposterous ways to make it a multi-use piece of gear (in addition to the many obvious uses). A threaded opening (like a screw cap/neck from a plastic soda bottle) could be added to the apex to accommodate a water filter to make it a scoop/funnel for filtering water. If it were somewhat bowl-shaped like Zatoichi's, rather than a cone, it could be aluminized on one side and, like a parabolic mirror, it could be used for heating something (I don't know what) in strong sunlight. If it had a drawstring around the edge, the stiffener rod could be pulled out and it could be cinched up to make a bag for carrying water (or anything else). Or it could be made out of a laminated map.

[Kevin Beeden]

> I was amazed at their bamboo rain capes too in Chinese museums

Otzi the Iceman had a woven grass rain cape. That's 5000 years ago…

The were still in use in the region at the turn of the 20th century.

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