Part 3
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.
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.
It should be observed, regarding this stiffening of hats, that it is simply a varnishing of the several fibres of the fur of which the hat is made, each hair individually has got a coat of water-proofing varnish, for when dry it will be found that the interstices between each and every fibre are quite open and free, and therefore susceptible of ventilation; thus differing entirely from what would have been the case had it been stiffened with any kind of paste.
Ruffing or Napping.
Very little of this is done at present in the United States. After the bare body of the hat is stiffened, if a flowing nap of beaver, otter, neutra, or other fine fur is desired, finer than that of which the body is made, half an ounce more or less of the superior uncarroted stuff is weighed out, sufficient to cover the whole outside surface of the hat. The hatter lays this precious morsel with perhaps one-eighth ounce of cotton on the hurdle, under the bow, as he did with the stuff for the body, and with a similar but lighter instrument, these two stuffs are completely mixed and spread upon the boards, as evenly as his experienced hands can do it; the cotton being used merely to enable him to handle the fur, which otherwise would be so thinly spread, and so attenuated of itself, as to endanger the simple act of lifting it. This mixture of fur and cotton is next spread upon the wet bare body of the hat as it lies upon the plank at the kettle, a little water is sprinkled over it and beat down with a brush. The hat with this surface covering is wrapped very carefully in a piece of cloth or coarse hair-cloth, and operated on very lightly, and nearly in the same manner as when felting the body. The object to be attained is to get the fibres of the fine fur to penetrate the body, and take root as it were therein--great care and watchfulness being demanded of the workman at every motion of his hands, in this manner of working. The points of the fibres of the beaver fur penetrate the body of the hat, and having once got a footing, it constantly advances, as the active careful rolling, folding and unfolding, shaking and tossing go on, until the fur has separated itself from the cotton; by its boring, having obtained a firm lodgment in the solid felt of the hat body root end foremost. The cotton with which it was mixed is left behind loose and useless, for want of the little rough scaly property that the other possessed. An inexperienced workman in thus ruffing a hat is liable to continue his work too long, until the beaver napping has burrowed quite through to the inside of the hat, where it is lost.[C]
In the various operations of the hatter with hot water, whether in body-making, napping, or dyeing, &c., the water should not be allowed to boil, for independent of the damage to some kinds of stiffening, as hair contains a large portion of gelatine in its substance (to which alone it owes its suppleness and toughness), this gelatine will be separated from the hair. This is particularly the case with napped hats, for when thus treated the fibre becomes much more brittle than before, and the nap soon breaks off round the square.
Fur hats having a flowing nap are sometimes clipped very short with revolving shears similar to those used in dressing cloth, and which is done previous to blocking or dyeing.
Blocking.
Previous to dyeing, all hats must be blocked, using such blocks as approach the intended shape of the hat, and as soon as possible after the making department is concluded. It is a laborious operation, though simple, as the nature of felt allows it to be stretched to a great extent in any direction when it is wet and hot.
In the act of blocking, the conical form of the hat is lost for the first time. The hat is now immersed in the _boiling water_ of the kettle, and while wet and hot the tip is stretched wide, and the whole thing simply drawn down over the block, a tight cord is run down to where the band is to be and the brim flattened out.
Dyeing.
The next operation is that of dyeing or coloring, and if convenient, and the hats fine, each hat should be upon its respective block when in the color kettle, great care being observed to keep the square from abrasion, as the least rub may deprive a napped hat of its fur at that exposed and important part. Most generally, however, the hats are colored without a block, the blocking being performed as soon after the dyeing and washing as possible in _boiling_ water.
The ordinary ingredients for black are, for 12 dozen,
144 lbs. of logwood, _chipped_, or its value in extract. 12 lbs. of green sulphate of iron or copperas. 7-1/2 lbs. of French verdigris.
The kettle should never boil nor exceed 190 degrees, and during the operation the hats must be repeatedly taken out and exposed to the action of the oxygen of the air, so as to strike a deeper color, and during the necessary exposure to these airings, the time is improved by having two suits of hats going on at the same time.
From six to twelve hours are required to complete the operation. The shorter the time the hats are in the dye, compatible with the deepness of the color, the better will be the goods, as boiling extracts the gelatine of the hair and makes the nap brittle, which is seen by comparing dyed articles with those that are of a native color.
Pumicing or Pouncing.
Pouncing is a term for rubbing down the outside of a hat with a piece of pumice stone, sand paper, or emery paper, whereby the hat is made entirely bare, smooth, and fine, resembling a piece of very fine cloth. These are generally called cassimere hats. This operation is usually performed after dyeing, and previous to finishing. Some makers, however, prefer to singe the hats instead of pouncing, but such hats never feel so fine as the others, as the singeing of any hair invariably produces a hard crisp burnt knob upon the end.
Finishing.[D]
When a hat arrives at that state of forwardness ready for finishing, it is a very unsightly object to any person but a hatter. Most of its processes have been wet ones, but now it is to assume a genteel and prepossessing appearance, under the artistic appliances of brushes, cloths, hot irons, and labored exercise. If a plain soft hat, it is pulled over such a block as is required, a cord is run round the hat to keep it tight upon the block; the tip and brim are then flattened with the hot iron, wet sponge, brushes, and hair-cloth cushion or velure, several wettings being necessary in finishing.
The brim is next cut to the required width, and the cord run down to the depth of the block. The side-crown is now to be finished, along with the tip and upper and under sides of the brim, the hatter exercising his best judgment. The block is then withdrawn, the brim curled and set, and the finished hat sent off to the trimmer to get lined and bound; it is then tipped off and packed for market.
The finishing of this kind of hat is a simple operation when compared to that of a napped hat; requiring only the assuming of the proper shape and form, the solidifying of the body, and giving it such a lustre and finish as the quality of the material will allow.
The stiff cassimere hat being less flexible, is subjected to hot steam preparatory to blocking, whereby it is made soft and pliable. When in this state it is drawn down over the block, and the block withdrawn, to insert a prepared disk of pasteboard into the crown for strength, after which it is finished much in the same way as that already described, but with the difference, that a cloth must always intervene between the hot iron and the hat when finishing.
The finishing of a napped hat, whether it be brush or beaver, is a very different process from that for either of those just described, requiring the nicest attention and patient perseverance by the best workmen. The hats are given out by the half dozen, which are sorted for the different sizes and steamed one by one; the hot steam softens the stiffening, and when pliable, the hat is drawn down over the respective finishing blocks, the nap of each hat straightened with a wet brush, and a half finish given to it with the water, brush, and bare hot iron. The block is then withdrawn and the hat given to be shaved with a razor. This seems a singular operation; but a few passes with that instrument over the hat effectually cut off all those projecting coarse hairs that have eluded all previous attempts at removal, and without in the smallest degree endangering the finer fur of the nap. The hat is now returned to the finisher to complete the process.
These coarse hairs, when left in the hat depreciating very materially its value, were formerly plucked out by hand with a pair of pickers, hair by hair, often to the injury of the hat. The advantage of the razor will be obvious to all.
A pasteboard disk, well spread with dissolved shellac, is now inserted into the tip, and the block reset. The workman with his hot iron, wet and dry brushes, &c., lays down the nap in its proper direction, and the hat by continuous labor becomes solidified and more elastic, the tip is rendered stout by the adhesion of the prepared inside disk; and by the repeated wettings, and careful ironings and brushings, all the ripply appearance of the fur is destroyed, and the whole surface becomes smooth and shining.
The crown being finished is then papered up, and the same operations that were bestowed upon the crown are now to be repeated on the brim, both on the upper and under side, which having been accomplished, a gauge is applied and the brim cut to the required width ready for the trimming.
There is a beautiful invention for preserving the form of all hats having flat or soft supple brims by means of a flattened wire, upon which two small twists are made, and when joined as a hoop, the proper concave is produced. This hoop is attached to the outer edge of the brim, and covered with the binding, and thus the unsightly slouch that often deformed, particularly the soft brimmed hat, is permanently prevented, and the graceful curve completely secured.
Silk Hatting.
The art of silk hatting is comparatively of modern invention, consisting simply of a cover of silk plush over a body of some other material. As much sleight of hand is required in this department, it naturally follows that a good workman is a valuable and appreciated artisan.
The bodies used for this kind of hat have been so various, that a full, or even succinct, description of them would be quite superfluous. Wool and fur bodies, straw and leghorn, cork, whalebone and muslin, &c., even stretchers similar to umbrellas without a body at all have been adopted, and all of them have had their day. At present, however, the trade seems to have settled down to the two kinds--fur and muslin.
The fur body of a silk hat, called a shell previous to coming into the hands of the silk finisher, is made much in the same manner as that of a plain soft hat, by felting and sizing it down to the proper dimensions in the plank kettle. It is quite light and thin, and when blocked or otherwise, and dried, is then ready for _stiffening_ by the finisher.
The different substances for this purpose, and the various methods of doing it, have been as numerous as the varieties of bodies that have been adopted. The whole of them, however, now have been abandoned for shellac.
The most simple and the best stiffening for any hat is shellac dissolved in alcohol, and thinned down to a proper consistence. A cheaper, however, and at the same time good stiffening, is the ammonia stiff already described. Either of these is applied in a like manner and with the like operations. The soft body or shell, as it is often called, is immersed in the liquid in a basin, then wrung out and pulled upon a block, the brim being flattened, a brush is dipped into another vessel containing a thicker lac, and applied to the square and brim for extra strength; after this the block is withdrawn, and the body set to dry.