A treatise on hat-making and felting, including a full exposition of the singular properties of fur, wool, and hair . ooth. 41 During these actions, the hat inside of the clothmust be several times changed in position and keptin proper form, when its swaddling envelope and thepaper within which kept the inside open and freemay be removed. These operations concluded, thetender hat must now be subjected to a much morelaborious operation, where, properly speaking, thegrand practical art of felting takes place, wherethousands of thousands of filaments are all in activethough slow motion, all trave
A treatise on hat-making and felting, including a full exposition of the singular properties of fur, wool, and hair . ooth. 41 During these actions, the hat inside of the clothmust be several times changed in position and keptin proper form, when its swaddling envelope and thepaper within which kept the inside open and freemay be removed. These operations concluded, thetender hat must now be subjected to a much morelaborious operation, where, properly speaking, thegrand practical art of felting takes place, wherethousands of thousands of filaments are all in activethough slow motion, all travelling on their own indi-vidual course, independent of, and at the same timedependent upon, each other for their mutual support,being carefully guided collectively, by the hattersgood judgment. This stage of the operation is a wet one requiringan open boiler surrounded by planks, which slope to-wards the centre, called a battery, Fig. 4, suitable forsix or eight men to work at. Each man is providedwith a rolling-pin, cloths, brushes, etc. The soft andtender hat is laid upon one of these planks or benches, Fig. Battery for Sizing Hats. wrapped in a damp cloth, and carefully wetted, squeezed,folded, rolled and unrolled, keeping it constantlymoistened by dipping it in the hot water of the 42 boiler, folding and unfolding with every variety ofcrossings, rolling it as a scroll, pressing, shaking,dipping and rolling it again and again, the hatter allthe while bending over his work in front of thealmost boiling caldron, and surrounded by steam. Helabors hard, ever changing the position of the hatunder his hands, so as to make it an evenly feltedand perfect piece of work, which these oft-repeatedmotions ultimately accomplish. This is the grand felting operation; the cause ofwhich was so long considered a mystery, and nowascertained to result from the peculiar natural con-struction of the animal fibre, as already explained. In this planking or sizing of the hat, sometimes withhalf a
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, bookpublisheretcetc, bookyear186
