I opened my big mouth and told my birch supplier I could make him a full size cowboy hat. I have made quite a few ornamental mini hats and thought all it takes is a big chunk of wood, right? A few days ago I thought today is the day so I started in making the re-chuck that a stack of mdf was previously glued up for. Then it was bearings, then lamp parts then, a new tool rest. Those items shot the whole day and that evening I re visited plenty of on line tutorials on the basics of wood hat making.
Day two: I started by cutting a blank from a 17" diameter birch log, prepped it for the lathe and turned the hat. The goal was to make a hat size 8-1/8 so from what I picked up on line I added 9/16" and turned the diameter at the band to 8-11/16". Its in the bender now and has taken quite a bit of shape but I don't expect to get a lot more from this piece of birch that was dying and had some bug holes. The only problem I had was the dark birch didn't let light through until I got to the sap wood at the dome, and I had to add some temporary strips of foam to the lighted re-chuck because the hat size was slightly too big for the chuck. The chuck as built should work fine for anything up to size 8.
If I can be of help to anyone who wants to undertake this type of project, just let me know. I don't plan to get seriously into hat turning, but it is fun and I plan to do at least a couple more now that I have some of the essentials like the lighted re chuck and a bending jig. I should have a finished pic in a week or so.
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Laugh at least once daily, even if at yourself!
Can't wait to see it completed.
