The Manufacture of Hats
Before commencing a detail of the processes of the trade, it will be necessary to bear in mind that hatting is universally divided into two great divisions, viz., the making, and the finishing departments, each of which as a matter of course has its subdivisions.
With the exception of encyclopædias which give detached and very abridged descriptions of felt making and of hatting generally, there has been no specific account published in either pamphlet or book-form, so far as the writer is aware, of the manner in which felt hats are made, or of the principle of felting by which they are produced.
This is considered by the writer a sufficient inducement to illustrate to the best of his ability a principle entirely belonging to natural history, viz., the natural scaly clothing that is upon all hair, and hitherto but little known, and upon which several important branches of business depend. Indeed, it seems almost absurd to think that a hair, puny as it is in itself, bears upon its sides a something of such importance, so very minute as to require the utmost attention with the aid of the best microscopes to be seen at all, and yet upon that something is based the art of felting and of course of hat-making, besides several branches of other trades, some of which have already been mentioned.
Hat-making was long considered a business to which machinery never could be applied, but the inventions of man have at last dispelled this illusion, and machinery is now employed in several of the most important departments of the trade.
The reason why this idea obtained such general credence was, first, on account of the close attention requisite, while the hat is under the operation of sizing.
Second, the known impossibility of napping or ruffing a hat by any means with machinery, also, the acknowledged failures of several attempts to substitute carding for that of bowing, and various futile attempts with the irons in the finishing department.
The innovations of machinery, however, have now obtained a sure footing in all large factories, and some of them will come under observation in their proper places.
In the mean time we shall confine our observations to the old system, which still prevails in most small factories and all small towns.
Our honest forefathers, the manufacturers in former times, would insist upon making hats to wear not for a season, as with us, but for many years, being afraid of damaging the trade to do otherwise, but now a hat for city wear, of scarcely three ounces weight, and lasting two or it may be three months, is quite a common thing.
The usual quantity of stuff given out for a regular felt hat, modified of course to a very great extent by the market, we shall suppose to be three ounces of fur. It may or may not be a mixture of different kinds and qualities of stuff previously prepared by carroting, and may or may not be refined by the winnowing machine, which separates the different qualities of fur. These three ounces, however, are sometimes increased by unprincipled men to four and a quarter or four and a half ounces, by the addition of other and cheaper ingredients, which are all laid upon a platform of boards about five feet square, called a hurdle, over which a large bow of about six feet long strung with cat-gut, Fig. 1, is suspended. This bow is held by the left hand of the hatter, and with the right he holds a small piece of wood with a head or knot upon it, Fig. 2, with which he tugs the string of the bow and makes it vibrate upon the stuff, and into it, with great dexterity and with the nicest judgment. This operation has always been considered a beautiful sight to a stranger, as the performer goes on plucking the string, and the string playing upon the top of the fur, which lies upon the left hand side of the platform. The fur touched by the string is made to fly from one side of the boards to the other with the greatest regularity. So nicely is this bowing performed, the stuff flying from the bow-string hair by hair, and flake by flake, that a hat in this loose state may measure several inches in thickness.
In this operation, the different materials are tossed about to-and-fro repeatedly, and mixed with a much greater regularity and change of position of the various filaments than if drawn by carding machinery. One half of the intended hat, called a bat, is bowed at a time, and both in nearly a triangular shape, which being gathered up, and pressed with a flat square piece of wicker-work, Fig. 3, and afterwards with a smooth skin or cloth, is pressed and gently rubbed with the hands backward and forward so as to create a friction on the surface fibres, thereby interlacing the outside filaments, by which means the simply safe-lifting of these two half-solidified portions of the future hat is secured. The one-half being laid upon the other, with a triangular piece of paper or cloth between, they are joined together by overlapping two of the three sides, thereby giving to the intended hat the form and figure of a hollow cone or great bag, but so tender that none but an experienced hatter could handle it.
This operation of bowing is the same, with but little variation, whether it be for coarse or fine hats.
If wholly of wool, they are now swaddled carefully in an outer cloth, and sprinkled with water, and laid upon a warm plate of metal which sends the steam up through the hat which is to be pressed, and slightly rubbed, sprinkled again, and turned over. Continuing the pressing and rubbing, and by repeating these operations for some time, the motions are transmitted to all the inclosed fibres of wool with an irritating feeling, as it were, exciting their propensity for travelling, till the outer hairs, in their motions, warp themselves with each other and the surface appears skin-like and becomes smooth.
During these actions, the hat inside of the cloth must be several times changed in position and kept in proper form, when its swaddling envelope and the paper within which kept the inside open and free may be removed. These operations concluded, the tender hat must now be subjected to a much more laborious operation, where, properly speaking, the grand practical art of felting takes place, where thousands of thousands of filaments are all in active though slow motion, all travelling on their own individual course, independent of, and at the same time dependent upon, each other for their mutual support, being carefully guided collectively, by the hatter’s good judgment.
This stage of the operation is a wet one requiring an open boiler surrounded by planks, which slope towards the centre, called a battery, Fig. 4, suitable for six or eight men to work at. Each man is provided with a rolling-pin, cloths, brushes, &c. The soft and tender hat is laid upon one of these planks or benches, wrapped in a damp cloth, and carefully wetted, squeezed, folded, rolled and unrolled, keeping it constantly moistened by dipping it in the hot water of the boiler, folding and unfolding with every variety of crossings, rolling it as a scroll, pressing, shaking, dipping and rolling it again and again, the hatter all the while bending over his work in front of the almost boiling caldron, and surrounded by steam. He labors hard, ever changing the position of the hat under his hands, so as to make it an evenly felted and perfect piece of work, which these oft-repeated motions ultimately accomplish.
This is the grand felting operation; the cause of which was so long considered a mystery, and now ascertained to result from the peculiar natural construction of the animal fibre, as already explained.
In this planking or sizing of the hat, sometimes with half a dozen under hands at the same time, the enveloping cloth is soon thrown aside as the hat grows in solidity. The hands of the hatter are defended from the scalding water by thick leather shields upon the palms, and as the hat approaches its proper size, it is scalded and belabored with determined importunity, coiled, rolled, pressed, and pinned, backward and forward till the size of the hat is reduced to nearly half of its original dimensions, and the tension of the several fibres becomes so great that the hat will felt no farther. At this stage it is impossible for it to be torn asunder, and is still in its original form of a hollow cone.
Such is the making department of the trade, the felting process, where a firm piece of cloth (for such is the body of a hat) is manufactured from loose wool or fur, independent of either spinning or weaving.
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.