Too much time on my hands today, so here’s my two cents worth on a very old thread:
I’ve worn felt, cloth and straw over the years and no single hat is all things to all environments.
In my own experience, a boonie-type hat in cotton is great for warm weather, and screened vents, like the old Army boonies, are helpful. As a previous poster commented, I can dunk it and turn it into evaporative cooler, during hot, dry weather. An extended rain turns it into a wet rag on my head. A boonie out of a man-made fabric doesn’t breath well in dry weather, but is better in rain. My experience is that after an hour or so of rain, the stitched seam where the brim meets the crown starts to leak, even on expensive Tilleys.
A straw hat is good in desert-dry environments. For me, it can’t be made in an open weave or I sunburn through the holes. I ended up with a solid weave Sunbody straw, with a 3 1/2 inch brim. I set two large grommets on each side of the crown, then carefully Barge Cemented a piece of cheap nylon window screening (free from the scrap pile at the local Ace Hardware) on the inside of each grommet to keep bugs out. The downside is Sunbody hats have a cloth sweatband backed in a thin layer of foam, so every night I need to fold the sweatband out to dry or it starts to get pretty nasty.
My current felt hiking hat is a beat up Stetson I found hanging in a friends shed that mud dauber wasps had turned into a nest. The wasps were gone, and the nest dissolved with water and a nylon brush. The Man’s Hat Shop, in Albuquerque, put a new sweat leather in it and I’ve now used it for years. It’s already rough-looking so I don’t worry about babying an expensive felt. It’s a good hat for cool weather, above timberline or cold rain. It also has real beat-to-Hell, Chindit class.
I put a wind cord and small ball-shaped cord lock on all my hats. A few years ago I made a couple of hatbands using the smaller, 275 lb paracord in a simple single strand braid that for my head size ends up being about 20 continuous feet of cord. I’m not a paracord bracelet kind of guy, but the hatband looks pretty good and might provide some utility sometime. How-to at- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD1oG7eOvaM
Thrift stores and flea markets are great sources of felt hats without breaking the bank. The previous poster who mentioned the Petzoldt video (fun to watch, thanks) – in his 1970s book, he recommended buying old felt hats and cutting out the sweat leather, and putting a wind cord on it. Colin Fletcher initially recommended the Stetson in a sort of “Open Road” style, but by his later books had switched to a surplus boonie.
To each their own to suit the weather.
.
.
© Beartooth Media Group Inc.
Loading...