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  • Author Author: synaesdav
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Coachman's Navigational Top Hat: Finishing the brim.

synaesdav

Today I finished off the brim. I swirled another square of velvet for the brim face and sewed and glued it on just like the under brim. Then I bound the edge of my hat in grosgrain ribbon. When using grosgrain for a binding, it is important to use sawtooth edge and not woven edge. Sawtooth edge grosgrain is bumpy at the edge and allows you to shape it into curves to go around the brim. After I shaped my grosgrain, I sewed a bias fold of the reflective material on one edge to help tie it visually with the future hatband. After the binding, I put in a leather sweatband. I like to use leather as the sweatband because it kind of grips to the forehead and gives a more secure feeling. For a lot of the sewing that I do on the brim, I use a curved needle. It is a little harder to "drive" than a straight needle, but it helps get into tight spaces better. Most commercial curved needles are too thick, they are meant for upholstery, so I curve my own from number 7 sharps with a pair of round nose pliers.

 

I wanted to use an acrylic jewel over each NeoPixel to act as a diffuser. I did a test with three different types of jewels. I drilled out a shallow hole in each jewel with a dremel and set them over the NeoPixels.

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Pictured on the left is clear acrylic, in the center is white opal, and on the right is aurora borealis finish on clear. I really liked the look of the white opal jewel the best. It really spread the light and made it visible from the side nicely as well. The white opal finish is not as opaque as milk white acrylic, so it allows more brightness through. I found some small square white opal jewels that just fit over the footprint of the NeoPixel. After drilling out a small hole, I used crazy glue to glue them over each NeoPixel.

 

As a final step, I used a hat stretcher to retain the size of the brim. Most hat stretchers crank open to a specific size, steam or heat is then used at the headsize to soften the felt a bit, and then cooled completely before removing from the hat stretcher.

 

Here is a step by step video of what I did. (no sound)

 

Coming up next...

Covering the sideband and tip in velvet and joining them together. Preparing for final assembly.