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Throwing My Hats in the Ring
- Thread starter mulceber
- Start date
Shanghai-Mayne
Well-Known Member
That makes me feel less crazy.
Thomas Koehle
Well-Known Member
CK90
Well-Known Member
Yeah that's a cracking line up dude, and boy is your jacket collection becoming epic! (one more gem on the way too, I believe
).
coolhandluke
Well-Known Member
Thank you for the kind words @Thomas Koehle, @CK90. The Switlik arrived in the mail today. Unfortunately it's at my work and the road conditions are not great due to some freezing rain last night. I may not be able to get to it until tomorrow.
mulceber
Moderator
Thank you for the kind words @Thomas Koehle, @CK90. The Switlik arrived in the mail today. Unfortunately it's at my work and the road conditions are not great due to some freezing rain last night. I may not be able to get to it until tomorrow.
My heart sank when I got to the word "unfortunately." Glad it's only a delay!
coolhandluke
Well-Known Member
Off topic, but I've spent the last 25+ years being convinced that Ms. Anderson circa 1997 would somehow end up being my future ex-wife.
coolhandluke
Well-Known Member
CK90
Well-Known Member
One fine lady Lucas!!Off topic, but I've spent the last 25+ years being convinced that Ms. Anderson circa 1997 would somehow end up being my future ex-wife.
View attachment 181777
coolhandluke
Well-Known Member
Even her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher couldn't deter me! I still think she's a hottie at 56.
Thomas Koehle
Well-Known Member
Off topic, but I've spent the last 25+ years being convinced that Ms. Anderson circa 1997 would somehow end up being my future ex-wife.
View attachment 181777
Na - she's an extraterrestrial and long gone back to Alpha Centauri ...
coolhandluke
Well-Known Member
Below is a Imgur album showing my EFF collection as well as a couple other caps from Stockbridge Sewing Works.
coolhandluke
Well-Known Member
mulceber
Moderator
Initial Impressions
Before I start fading these hats (that’s several months off at this point anyway), I’m going to share my initial impressions of the hats. I’m going to avoid dwelling on accuracy, partly because not everyone is going to care about stitch-for-stitch accuracy, and an inaccurate hat might very well have qualities that someone here might prize. But mostly I’m side-stepping the accuracy issue because I’ve never owned an original and know fu…err…muck all about them.To avoid stumbling over the names, one of which is long enough to be annoying, for now I’m going to call them Bravo (Bronson), Mike (MASH), and Whiskey (World War II Impressions).
Left to Right: Mike, Bravo, Whiskey
Color & Material
A picture’s worth a thousand words, but I’ll add a few. Mike is very much the middle of the pack here, and its shade of Olive drab has a bit of a blue hue to it. Bravo is much more of a yellow cast, while the color of Whiskey reminds me a bit of the sage green used in L-2B flight jackets.The AAF stamp on Bravo is crisp and black, and it looks like it might have been screen-printed, while the stamps on the other two are a dark blue. Whiskey is quite faded, but both of them genuinely look like they were stamped on.
The material of the three hats all feels the same, and I doubt there’s anyone who could tell the difference between them blindfolded. I did notice as I was looking at them that the weave of the herringbone on Bravo is slightly wider than the other two, but that’s a millimeter’s difference. I don’t care; others might.
I weighed all three on the kitchen scale and got the following numbers:
Bravo: 2.4 oz or 67g
Mike: 2.8 oz or 80g
Whiskey: 2.7 oz or 73g
Label
Here Whiskey is the outlier. While the other two have an imitation spec. label, Whiskey has a modern-day brand label and a Made in the USA (or as Weston at Rose Anvil says, “mitusa”) label.Pattern & Construction
Mike and Whiskey are mostly identical here. On Whiskey, the two front panels bulge outward, giving it a LITTLE BIT of a trucker hat look. That’s just my impression from the first try-on though, and it might be due to how it was packaged.The major outlier here is Bravo. The bill is narrower, side-to-side, than the other two are:
Also, whereas the other two have some sort of material in the bill to stiffen it, Bravo is completely unstructured.
This isn’t a bad thing, per se, although not everyone may feel that way. I used to wear a newsboy cap with my leather jackets, and an unstructured bill was much more comfortable. I’d frequently forget it was on my head. But the unstructured bill does make me wonder how much starch Bronson had to put into this hat their model wore:
The stitch count on Bravo looks a little lower than the other two. As before, not a big deal to me, but it might be to others.
Sizing
My head measures 59.5 cm. Ordinarily I wear a 7½, although I occasionally can squeak by on 7⅜. Mike and Whiskey run true to size. For Bravo I had to order a size up, 7¾. All three hats fit basically the same.Summing Up
Everything I’ve seen so far leads me to think @Grant was right – I like MASH the best. But we’ll see how they take the heat…starting in about 4 months.
Chandler
Well-Known Member
Jan -- what materials are the caps made from?
I ask because I've seen ATF mention (at their site) that cotton caps will shrink with wear: getting wet and drying, sweat. They size theirs up a little to accommodate.
I have a herringbone twill fatigue cap of theirs that I can attest to shrinkage from soaking and drying.
Fit pics as new and later would be telling.
That said -- gaining and losing weight can have an effect on head circumference too (more personal experience), and I know you're experiencing changes with exercise.
I ask because I've seen ATF mention (at their site) that cotton caps will shrink with wear: getting wet and drying, sweat. They size theirs up a little to accommodate.
I have a herringbone twill fatigue cap of theirs that I can attest to shrinkage from soaking and drying.
Fit pics as new and later would be telling.
That said -- gaining and losing weight can have an effect on head circumference too (more personal experience), and I know you're experiencing changes with exercise.
mulceber
Moderator
HBT cotton, although I don’t think the problem is change in my head size. All three hats fit the same (more or less), but one of them is marked 7 3/4 while the other two are marked 7 1/2. Bronson just didn’t conform to normal hat sizing.
coolhandluke
Well-Known Member
Jan, do you see any notable differences in the dome height between the three caps (measurement from above ear, over top of crown, to above opposite ear)? Asking as I am one of those individuals with a shorter head height.
The BR mechanics cap arrived today, and it's dome height is ridiculously deep for a vintage pattern cap. It touches my ears and covers my eyebrow line. I may have to resort to boiling as a cycle through the washer and dryer did nothing to reduce the size. I should have stuck with my original plan to purchase the Papa Nui indigo A-3.
The BR mechanics cap arrived today, and it's dome height is ridiculously deep for a vintage pattern cap. It touches my ears and covers my eyebrow line. I may have to resort to boiling as a cycle through the washer and dryer did nothing to reduce the size. I should have stuck with my original plan to purchase the Papa Nui indigo A-3.
Grant
Well-Known Member
FWIW, I've found no appreciable shrinkage just wearing the cap made from HBT fabric in rain and snow. I have found if a little shrinkage is needed, soaking the cap in a pan of boiling hot water, then laying out in the sun does allow some shrinkage. I wouldn't put HBT material in a heated dryer, just my opinion.
Luke, yes, I've too found the BR A-3 cap cut way too modern if you're going for a wartime look. I sold off mine years ago.
Luke, yes, I've too found the BR A-3 cap cut way too modern if you're going for a wartime look. I sold off mine years ago.
