Process and Apparatus for Manufacturing Hats from Flat Bodies and Napping such Bodies.
Year: 1893

page_text: Date of Application, 9th May, 1893-Accepted, 29th July, 1893
CUDIT DELE DE CULTIVATION.
Process and Apparatus for Manufacturing Hats from Flat Bodies
and Napping such Bodies.
We, GEORGE YULE, of 46 Burnett Street, Newark, Essex County, State of
New Jersey, United States of America, Hatter, and WILLIAM ALFRED BAGLIN,
of 14 Saybrook Place, in the City of Newark, County of Essex, State of New
Jersey, United States of America, Hatter, do hereby declare the nature of this
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed to be particularly
described and ascertained in and by the following statement :---
The present improvements relate to the manufacture of a hat body and the
pouncing, finishing, blocking, shaping, and trimming of the same.
The improvement in the hat body consists in first sizing the hat body by proper
manipulation into a flat disk of felt, and afterward pressing a hat block into the
same at any point within the border to produce the crown; while in the flat
form the hat body may be napped, pounced, and finished in the most convenient
manner.
By making the flat disk truly circular it may be napped, pounced, and finished
by machinery with greater cheapness than in any other shape, and may afterward,
by steaming to render it soft, be stretched into an oval, or any desired irregular
shape.
The blocking of such a hat reverses the ordinary method of procedure; as
instead of holding the crown and stretching the brim to the desired form, the
brim of the hat body is held and the crown stretched thercin by suitable tools.
The improvements are especially applicable to napped hats, as such hats are
frequently made with very low crowns in fancy styles with brims of irregular
shape, having flowing fur applied to the border upon the upper and lower sides.
Ladies' hats of such style frequently have the brim projected much further upon
one side of the crown than on the other, and in the manufacture of such a hat
from a conical body, it has heretofore been common to nap the brim of the hat
while in true conical shape and to afterward stretch or trim the brim to make
it project more upon one side of the brim than the other.
With such method of manufacture, the brim is either stretched excessively at
given points or a waste of fur is incurred in trimming the brim before or after
napping the same.
The present invention furnishes a means of producing any desired irregular
shape having a raw edge and therefore without trimming the edge of the body or
stretching the brim excessively at any point.
The flat hat body may be formed from a flat bat or from a conical bat felted
from a given weight of fur, and the treatment of such bats, and of the flat hat body
made therefrom, secures incidentally many advantages in respect to the quality of
the product, as the bat for the hat body is preferably formed in conical shape and
then sized into a flat disk. The sizing or felting operation is performed upon a
blank by rolling the conical bat in a cloth, dipping the same in hot water, and then
working the roll by hand in the required manner. To transform the bat from a
conical to a flat form the tip of the body requires to be shrunk a great deal more
han the brim, and the operator therefore rolls and works the center or tip of the
bat in a much greater degree than the brim, and thus causes the fibres to contract
nore rapidly in the middle than at the edges of the bat.
In such operation the bat is frequently removed from the cloth and refolded, and
he operation continued until the bat is shrunk into a flat disc. By this mode of
proceedure the tip is shrunk a great deal more than the brim, and is consequently

page_text: Gickened up and hardened, while the brim which is shrunk in a much less degree
remains open in texture and is thus especially adapted to receive the roots of the
fur fibres if subsequently napped.
The loose and open character of the brim also adapts it to stretch freely into an
oval or irregular shape; while the thickness and shrinking of the tip adapt it to
endure the strain to which it is subjected when the hat is blocked and the crown is
raised upon the felt.
With a body of flat form, the crown may evidently be raised at any point, and
the irregular width of the brim may thus be produced in great part by the location
of the crown, and without stretching or trimming the brim.
A flat body of felt is liable to become slightly dished or raised at the middle, and
the term "flat body" or "flat nap bat" does not signify herein one that is exactly
flat, but one adapted for practically holding or working upon a flat surface. In
manufacturing or operating upon such flat bodies, large use is made of a rotating
plate with an annular rim fitted to the edge of the flat body, using such plate for
drying the flat bodies singly after felting, scalding or dyeing: for forming the nap
bats to fit such flat bodies, and for supporting and rotating the bodies during the
pouncing and finishing operations. While the body is wet after the sizing
operation, the felt is very yielding, and when laid upon such a plate within a rim
of suitable size, the rapid rotation of the plate operates not only to dry the felt by
discharging the moisture, but expands the edge of the felt into close contact with
the rim and thus fixes the size of the body very exactly. A large series of circular
bodies of exactly the same size may thus be produced, and by forming a nap-bat
upon an exhausted perforated plate with a similar rim, the flat body can be laid
within the rim upon the nap-bat and stuck thereto in the most accurate manner
before removal; and a similar rim applied to the rotating plate of a pouncing.
finishing machine suffices in like manner to hold the body in place while pouncing
or finishing the same.
or
The invention will be understood by reference to the annexed drawing, in which
Fig. 1 exhibits a conical hat body;
Fig. 2 the same worked down by proper manipulation into a circular disk of felt.
An annular nap is shown upon the edge of such disk, in the section of the same
across the middle, shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 4 is a diagram showing rolls for stretching such a circular felt; and Fig. 5
exhibits the felt stretched into oval form by such rolls.
Fig. 6 is a diagram of an apparatus for splitting the flat hat body or other
hard felt;
Fig. 7 represents a central section of a hat formed in two layers, one consisting
of the split felt.
Figs. 8 and 9 exhibit in plan and central section, a hat with a layer of split and
napped felt secured upon one side of the brim.
Fig. 10 represents an endless and seamless band of felted fur ;
Fig. 11 a channel-formed strip of split felt for binding a hat brim ;
Fig. 12 a central section of a hat with such a binding, the split felt being shown
with a nap upon the outer side.
Fig. 13 represents in section a rotary carrier for pouncing or finishing a flat
body;
Fig. 14 represents in section the annular clamp and carrier for grasping the edge
of a flat hat body and supporting the same adjacent to the edge, with a hat block
for pressing the crown into the same.
66
Fig. 15 is a plan of the rotary table for a bat-forming" machine, with a
former-plate" adapted for " forming" annular nap bats; and Fig. 16 is a section
of the same on line x, x, in Fig. 15.
a represents a conical body-bat adapted to be felted by suitable manipulation
into the flat circular disk b shown in Fig. 2.
с
To pounce and finish such disks, a flat rotary carrier c is used having rim d to
center the disks. Such a carrier is also used to dry and shape the flat bodies, the

page_text: disks being first felted by suitable manipulation to fit loosely within such rim.
The carrier being mounted upon a spindle e may be rotated by suitable means, and
a series of such disks may be readily made of exactly the same size by placing
them while hot and moist within the rim d and rotating the carrier rapidly; the
centrifugal force then serving to expand the edges of the disk into contact with
the rim d, while the motion also discharges the water from the disk, and drie;
the disk of the desired. size.
To nap the brim of such flat bodies, the apparatus shown in Figs. 15 and 16 is
used. A former plate f is applied to the rotary table g (which is commonly used
upon fur-forming machines to support the former cone) the plate f being provided
with an annular series of perforations and a marginal rim of the same dimensions
as the rim d, or of a size to fit the flat body which is to be napped. The nap bat
being formed upon the annular perforations h, the circular disk is laid within the
rimi and pressed upon the bat to stick the same thereto; and the body is then
scalded to produce the nap n' thereon, as shown in Figs. 2 and 3. Both sides of
body may be napped.
By placing the napped body upon the carrier shown in Fig. 13, it may then be
pounced while rapidly rotated, such motion permitting the fur to be cut away
accurately at the inner margin of the nap, and thus making the nap of uniform
width upon the flat side of the brim, when the body is blocked.
The flat body may also be finished while rotating upon a similar carrier, and its
surface may thus be finished more evenly than when the operation is performed
upon a convex hat block. The flat body may then, if desired, be stretched into
oval shape by the means shown in Fig. 4 consisting in a pair of feed rolls m and
a pair of stretching rolls n, connected by cog-wheels o of such size as to rotate the
stretching rolls faster than the feed rolls, which operates to elongate the hat body
into an oval shape as shown in Fig. 5. The rolls m and n would in practise be
mounted in a suitable frame, and may be rotated by hand or by power, by furnishing
the rolls with a crank, or a pulley having a driving belt applied thereto.
The cog wheels may be proportioned to stretch the body in the desired degree
in a single operation, or it may be stretched a little each time and subjected
repeatedly to the rolls while hot and moist, and the hat brim thus be made as oval
as is required.
The flat body may be split before or after napping by the means shown in Fig. 6,
in which is a feed roll and ka presser roll to direct the body b toward a knife l;
by which the body may be split into two layers b'. The rolls and the knife would
be mounted in a suitable frame, and the rolls rotated by any convenient means, but
splitting machines embodying such rolls and knives are already used in slitting
leather, and the frame and means for actuating the feed rolls are therefore omitted
from the drawing.
Each half of the split body may be used in the manufacture of hats, the same as
an unsplit body, and is obviously produced at a much less expense, especially where
the body is first napped upon both sides; as each half furnishes a body napped
upon one side, at one half the original cost. Such split bodies of different colors
and qualities may be secured together or to a foundation, by cement, gutta-percha
stiffening, or sewing, and the injurious effect of applying the stiffening before or
after dyeing is thus wholly avoided; and the hat may be formed with the
under side of different qualities or colors, as is indicated by the letters
in Fig. 7, or having the brim napped upon either side at pleasure.
A felt of fine quality may be split into two or three layers, and the layers may
be cut into rings or bands of any suitable shape or width and secured upon either
or both sides of the hat brim.
opper
and
and 62
A flat napped band p of split felt is shown thus secured as a trimming upon the
brim of a hat in Figs. 8 and 9. The split felt may also be used as a binding
9 for
a hat brim, as shown in Fig. 12; a strip being bent into channel form, as shown in
Fig. 11, for such purpose.
A flat band, like that shown at p in Fig. 9 may, by suitable manipulation, when

page_text: hot and moist, be formed into the tubular seamless band r shown in Fig. 10, which
is adapted to form a trimming for the band of the crown, as shown in Fig. 12. A
flat band when softened by heat and moisture is readily stretched upon its inner
edge to the same diameter as the outer edge, and is thus transformed from a flat
plate into the desired cylindrical shape.
When cooled and dried, the band retains such shape, and also possesses sufficient
elasticity to cling closely to the crown of a hat. To form the crowns in the flat
bodies, any suitable machine is used in which the tools shown in Fig. 14 may be
used. In this figure the carrier c¹ is shown with an opening in the center adapte:]
to admit the hat block s, and a narrow annular clamp t provided with a yielding
facing u is arranged so as to press upon the extreme edge of the flat body b. The
rim d and the clamp t are made of suitable shape to fit the edge of the flat body;
whether round, as in Fig. 2, or oval as in Fig. 5; and the clamp is, when forming
the crown, pressed upon the edge of the body by suitable means.
The flat body when clamped upon the carrier is steamed to soften it, and the hat
block is then pressed upon the body by any suitable means; the felt stretching not
only in the center of the body, but also in the entire substance of the brim to the
clamp t at its edge.
The carrier c¹ may, before actuating the hat block, be rotated rapidly while the
body is soft, and the edge of the brim may thus be stretched into close contact with
the rim d, giving the hat brim the exact shape that is desired. After the crown is
raised upon the body, the carrier may again be rotated to stretch the hat brim and
dry and cool the same. The brim may afterward be shaped upon corrugated or
fancy flanges. The pouncing and finishing of the hat body in the flat shape obviates
the necessity of finishing the brim when thus corrugated or flanged. By providing
the aperture in a suitable part of the carrier c¹ shown in Fig. 14, the crown may be
made in any part of the body and the brim thus made of uneven width (as shown in
Fig. 8) without trimming the felt at all.
The raw edge may thus be preserved upon the hat body from the outset. By
forming and applying the nap bat to a raw edge upon the body, within the circular
rim i shown in Fig. 15, the nap bat may be stuck to the body with great exactness
and uniformity, so that the edge of the brim may be fully covered with the flowing
fur. The annular rim i may be made of oval or irregular shape, as indicated by
the dotted lines v in Fig. 16.
The flat hat bodies may be formed from flat pieces of felt by the process
described, in cases where a low crown is to he pressed in the same; but a flat body
formed from a conical bat is of greater strength in the middle, and is used for hats
with high crowns. The use of a flat body thus enables me to manufacture the hat
with very simple means and great reduction in cost, and facilitates the production
of the split felt and its application to produce various combinations of color or
quality in the hat body, as well as to furnish the trimmings described. As such
trimmings are of the same substance as the felt hat they are adapted to dye, stretch
and wear in the same manner as the felt itself.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said inven-
tion, and in what manner the same is to be performed, we declare that what we
claim is :
1. The process herein described for making hats, namely, first felting the hat
body into a flat disk, then securing the edges of the disk rigidly and supporting the
adjacent portion thereof, and finally pressing a block into the flat body at any
suitable point within the border to produce the crown.
2. The process herein described for making hats, namely, first felting a conical
hat body by proper manipulation into a flat circular disk, then pouncing and
finishing the same, and finally pressing a block into the hat to produce the crown.
3. The method herein described for making napped hats, which consists in first
felting the hat body into a flat circular disk, then napping such disk, and finally
pressing a block into the hat body to produce the crown.

page_text: 4. A flat circular hat body having the middle portion shrunk in a much greater
degree than the edge.
5. A flat hat body composed in whole or in part of split felt.
6. A hat body comprising a layer of napped and split felt united to a foundation.
7. A hat trimming consisting in a body of fur felted into an endless and seamless
band.
8.The method of hat manufacture herein described, in which a definite weight
of fur is felted into a single flat disk, and the disk blocked by holding its edges
stationary and raising the crown within the edge.
Dated this 8th day of May 1893.
GEORGE BARKER,
77, Colmore Row, Birmingham, Agent.