Story of the Cowboy Hat: How is it Made?

There’s something to be said about a cowboy hat, including what it says about the wearer. My last hat story said some of the things a cowboy hat tells upon observation. Now, it’s time to say something about the hat itself. How is a cowboy hat made?

What is a cowboy hat made of?

I’m going to talk about the real thing here. No knock offs, no cheap imitations, no plastic hats or WalMart specials. A real cowboy hat is made from beaver fur.

The fibers, yes, the hairs, if you will, are sheared from the animal and chemically treated. A mix of long and short, downy soft and coarse fibers of fur are manipulated with hot water and steam, kneaded, and pressed into a fabric called felt. The softer and shorter the fibers, the more expensive is the resulting felt fabric.

Other animal furs are also used, particularly rabbit fur and nutria. The former is cheaper than beaver; the latter costs more. Felt fabric can also be made from wool. I’m not going to consider wool felt here, although a little wool fiber can be mixed with the beaver. Hats made from pure wool felt are the least expensive kind of cowboy hats and fall in the cost structure right after the WalMart specials.

What do the Xs mean in a cowboy hat?

The fur fabric from which the cowboy hat is made carries an X designation ranging from 1X to 100X or more. Anything below a 5X hat is made of poor grades of fibers and may contain no beaver fur at all. It’s been said around the ranch that the lowest Xs mean more mouse hairs in your cowboy hat! That may be just a cow poke’s jest; but maybe not. One thing is for sure: the more Xs, the more expensive your cowboy is going to be, with 100X hats climbing into the thousands. I’m talking dollars!

How does fabric get shaped into a hat?

There’s a lot of heat, steam, and manipulation to get a piece of flat two-dimensional material shaped into a three-dimension form without seams. Check out a cowboy hat for seams. There aren’t any. Unless, of course, you got the WalMart special.

The material is first shaped into a cone, taking on its first resemblance as something for your head. Hat-makers call this the “hood.” The crown of the hat is formed with a forming machine, making the crown much larger than it will be when finished. At this point, the crown gets dunked in hot water, which shrinks the fibers a bit. Rough shaping follows by stretching it over a wooden block. Final shaping occurs by blocking the crown and flattening the brim but not before a ninety degree angle was formed between the two.

If this sounds like a lot of patient manipulation by hand, it is, which is why hat-making is quite an art, and in this way produces the real thang! This cowboy hat is made and now ready for customization and accouterments. The real fun part is next. How to make a plain ole cowboy hat your own is coming soon.

Disclaimer

Oh, and, no offense to WalMart. I love WalMart. Just get your cowboy hat somewhere else.

Source: William Reynolds, Ritch Rand, The Cowboy Hat, Gibbs Smith Publisher, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2003.