Baseball cap question

[Gormans sideburns]

Does anyone know how to stretch a hat? I got a 7 1/4 fitted Brewers hat for X-mas and it's just a snug tight. I'm looking for any home remedies out there.

Also, I thought I read an article about how to get the "squareness" out of the top of the hat. Has anyone else read about this??

Thanks and happy holidays!!!!

[TooLiveBrew]

Gorman, I can't recall, but I know it was from someone here that I heard about getting the train-engineer-ness out of the 59/50s. As for stretching it, since they make the hats in such small increments, I'd suggest exchanging your 7 1/4 for a 7 3/8 as opposed to stretching it (or at least try out how the 3/8 fits). But I don't know... maybe you prefer to stretch it out. Oh - I got both the barley logo & ball-&-glove logo 59/50s today! Am I the only one who prefers the fit of the 'Franchise' model that Twins Enterprises makes? I'm thinking I'm going to exchange mine for that model - but if we get a good fix here for the 'squareness', Gorman, I'd be inclined to stay with the 59/50s. You can literally feel & see how much more durable they are.

[mrautomatic87]

Here is the link for fixing 59/50 hats.

 

If your hat is just a little tight (going up one size won't fit), then follow the procedure on the website. Stretch it out with your hands until the seams loosen. I did this with a different hat and it worked great.

[sbrylski]

Jeff Kent, Omar Vizquel and I say leave the crown on the hat alone.

[TerraceReserved]

I may be mistaken, but I don't think that you can perform 5950 surgery on a hat with the new material. I thought the insides don't have any thread, but rather a synthetic material that can't be ripped apart.

[PKBadger]

I may be mistaken, but I don't think that you can perform 5950 surgery on a hat with the new material. I thought the insides don't have any thread, but rather a synthetic material that can't be ripped apart.

 

 

 

You can perform the surgery on the new caps, but it doesn't work as well. The old 5950's were made of wool, and the new ones are a poly blend, so when you apply water they don't shrink and form-fit to your head as well. I had some success by using boiling water and just dunking the hat in there for a few minutes. It sounds dumb, but I actually looked it up online and you have to use a really hot temp to shrink poly (something about breaking the covalent bonds in the material - chemistry majors, help me out here).

 

TLB - the caps that you got, are they the old wool style (grey underbill) or the new ones (black underbill)? You can still order the wool caps from neweracap.com but it says that quantities are limited, and they only have the current Brewers logo left (no ball-and glove). I think I might try and pick one up before they run out.

[TooLiveBrew]

Rats - mine have the black underbill (whatta great word that is). Oh well, I'll probably just end up swapping for the Franchise versions as I mentioned. The b&g logo hat looks sooooo sweet in the 59/50 incarnation - but the barley logo looks lame compared to the Franchise version.