Mat McCall
Inspiration
I have this fantastic Hussar’s Pelisse, which I’ve blinged up a little more. I know, but when can you have enough bling? And I’d love a hat to wear with it.
So, I woke up on Monday morning after having a dream about making hats and thought…I’ll make a hat. Partly my inspiration had to come from Marcus Brookes and that amazing Grenadier Guards Busby he made.
I've made a few hats before but nothing truly ambitious.
But nothing particularly difficult as far as shape and form is concerned. After all a top hat is just a tube with a top and a brim. The peeked cap was a challenge though.
The Hat
So, I looked up Hussar’s hats. Most regiments wore a Busby, the English name for the Hungarian prémes csákó (fur shako) or kucsma, a head-dress made of fur, originally worn by Hungarian Hussars.
More about that in project 2.
The Csákó looked easy enough to make, I foolishly thought, but I wanted something historically-themed but outlandish, and something that would easily be adapted to Steampunk. So, I looked at other regiments and came across the lancer's hat, the ‘Czapka.’
This looks amazing, it’s impressive, and could easily be decorated in a Steampunk Style. After all, look at what Steamers do with top hats and stove pipes; this was the one I wanted to try to build.
However, the shape was a nightmare and I could not find any making instructions anywhere. The nearest thing was this illustration.
Part One; The Build.
I couldn't build this from a pattern as I could not find one on the internet. So this would require a degree or trial and error.
Firstly, I decided that I would build the base out of card, this would make it flexible, light, and can be strengthened. I needed a strong card but light and thin, not corrugated. The best stuff I found was old Amazon card envelopes. Two large and two small. I put the small ones aside to use late.
The large ones I trimmed them so I could get an idea of the ‘meat’ of the materials. I ended up with four large panels and some edging strips.
Firstly, I had to think about the size of my head. Standard measurements would not work for me as I am dyslexic and dyscalculic and libel to get confused. As I am using up personal resources, I cannot afford to waste materials on mistakes. So, to get a correct measurement of my head I folded the leftover edging strips, taped them together, and wrapped them around my head. Marking where they overlapped.
(Use heavy-duty masking tape. * You will need to PVA over taped areas later and Sellotape will come off when wet.)
This gave me an exact measurement of the circumference of my head.
The Czapka has four panels. So simply divide the measurement by four.
Now the Czapka has a distinct fluted shape and is wider at the top than the bottom.
As I had no plans to go on and was working on guesswork and instinct only, I had to build a maquette to get the angles right.
I went for a gentle curve, but at this point, I could have exaggerated the curve or made the top much wider than the bottom. I guess it’s a matter of taste. So long as the lower sections of the panels are equal to a quarter of the circumference, you can go for it.
Once I had the curve the maquette looked right. I cut the four panels that would form the actual body of the Czapka. Also cut a fifth, as a template for cutting leather and fabric later.
I didn’t allow for folding tabs on the pieces. You could, but I have found them annoying and problematic in the past. But if you use them, make sure they are small as they may interfere with the curve of the lines. I preferred to tape* the joints together on the outside.
Then, slide the bottom section into the folded edging strips to form the hat brim. Tape it all together.
You now have the basic form of your Czapka. It’s light, but flexible to the point of flimsy. I was lucky because I had Fred, the head of a manikin that I was working on, that was the ideal fit for this. You could use anything to hand, including a balloon, husband or wife, or child, as a forma, unless you are lucky enough to have a hat block.
To strengthen the structure the Czapka needed a top. This needed to be stronger than the side panels but also light. I didn’t want to use corrugated card as it would probably bend, it is only really strong in one direction and could delaminate in the making process. Searching the cupboards I found a piece of art board, the stuff which had a layer of form between two layers of thin card. Ideal! And it was just big enough.
Placed on the mannequin’s head and pushed down gently, the overall shape of the Czapka almost molded itself.
I cut a peek from some thicker card and left on some tabs. This I taped on to the brim using framer’s paper tape, because it was thicker and very sticky, I also PVA glued it.
Having the top and the peak in place gave the form some additional strength.
I suppose if you were just knocking something up for a fancy-dress party, you could stop there and just cover it with whatever fabric you wanted or glue on some fancy wallpaper, and it would be enough to survive a night out, school play or Christmas bash.
However, I want this to be a hat I can use, reuse and be proud of, Also I’m very clumsy, so it needs to be tough. Another layer was required to hold it all together, add strength and also help mold it permanently.
I used paper mâché. No not like you did at school. I have a lot of ‘teabag paper’ left over from the project I did for Westgate Street in Gloucester. If you don’t have ‘tea bag’ paper, you could use a good two or three-ply paper towel, separate the layers and laminate them. Another great paper mâché material is the packing paper Amazon uses in boxes. The stuff is absorbent, dip it in the watered PVA and laminate it on, it dries rock hard. And they usually stuff loads of it in their boxes (Makes great brown paper wrapping paper too).
And I have a large container of “washable” PVA glue. Water the glue down a little and apply the paper to the surface, then brush on the PVA. This is laminated over the card form, seams, tape, and all, in several layers. Make sure you pay particular attention to the seams and joints. I would recommend that you tear or cut the paper into smaller sections don’t try to cover large areas with one sheet. It gets messy and the paper mâché gets rucked up.
Also, once the paper mâché is down you may have to smooth it with your fingers to get rid of bubbles or folds.
I was lucky as this was during the hottest days of the year, so I could do it outside and the stuff was drying almost as quickly as I did it. You might need a hair dryer.
Remember to do the underside of the brim, and fold over the paper mâché to the inside so it provides a continuous area of strengthening.
Now you will notice that as the watered-down PVA goes on the card underneath becomes much more mailable. This is when you can get your best fit and shape it further. Once it is dry it will hold that shape, but it will also be rock hard. I put on about four layers of paper mâché over the whole thing.
Once I knew all the joints were sealed, and the outside was dry, I poured some PVA inside the hat and ran it about to seal all the joints from the inside. I also put some paper mâché over the inside seams and around the inside brim.
Let it dry thoroughly.
At this point examine the hat for malformations or distortions. Is the brim straight? Any dents or odd folds? I had an odd dent appear halfway up the front seam.
The reason you will find distortions is that you are making the card distort across several planes when the fibres in it were made to lay flat.
I used a piece of balsa wood as a brace and some thick card coated with epoxy glue to push out the dent from the inside. This also strengthened the area on the inside.
Now you have a hat. It’s tough and it fits.
But you need to do something with it. You could paint it or decoupage it, cover it with wallpaper, anything.
I wanted it to have the look of authority about it. I wanted to be able to wear it with my Hussar’s jacket and with my Rocketeers uniform and I also wanted it to look fab-u-lous!
So, I went back to those images of the real military Czapkas from the Napoleonic and Victorian age. Polish, Austo-Hungarian, French and British examples. Boy did those guys love their bling!
(See above)
Because I'm a maker, I have lots of stuff around the house including a lot of leather offcuts. I found a few small pieces of leather with a reptile print on it and cut out the cover for the peak. I would also use some of it to make a hat band later.
Un-thinned PVA does the job of gluing the leather nicely to the paper mâché surface. Be generous with the glue.
Taking inspiration from the originals I decided to cover the hat partly with leather (lower) and partly with fabric (upper). I have a couple of small hides of goat skin and using the card template I cut before, I cut out four sections, and the underside of the peak, and glued them on.
Knowing the inside sweatband was going to get a lot of use, I chose to glue a band of felt inside. I used UHU glue and gave it a generous smear. It’s waterproof and holds the felt well.
Now for the fabric. I decided that as the Czapka was going to be part of my ‘dress uniform’ for both the Hussars’ jacket and the Rocketeers it should be red and black. Rooting about the house I found a piece of red cloth with a nice pattern on it. Not quite big enough to cover the whole top area and side halves without cutting it, but excellent material, heavy and good quality.
I used the PVA to stick this to the hat and trimmed it to fit. Don’t be too generous!! My mistake was putting too much glue on certain areas and it not only took an age to dry it marked the fabric on the top a little.
After trimming to fit, I folded corner edges and glued them with fabric glue. I tried to match up the short side with some off-cuts as best as I could.
Looking back over the original images I chose to put some braiding around the edge where the leather and fabric meet, around the top and over the seams of the fabric. I used fabric glue for this as it dries very fast and sticks well.
The real military metal braiding used for the cap edge has been sitting around my house for years. It’s wire and tough and I used extra strong UHU glue to stick it into place.
All that in two days.
Onwards
And that’s where I had to stop, as now I needed to buy items to finish the decorating. Which we will look at in a moment.
This project was to see how far I could get using junk and stuff I already had around the house, without buying anything new. I think the result speaks for itself.
Firstly, though let’s look at the materials I used and probably you may have most of these around the house.
I have a lot of stuff left over from past projects and resources I have collected. I get a lot of things from Gloucester’s scrap store and I love to reuse things.
The cardboard was reused from Amazon card envelopes. This means no one can kick it and say it was theirs because you can still see the postage labels on some of them.
The foam art board was an offcut from a project years ago.
The masking tape and the framer’s tape were out of my workbox. As was the UHU. The Fabric glue out of my sewing box, and the big bottle of PVA I brought several months ago from the scrape store. I did use some epoxy glue that I had in my glue box. You could do 90% of the sticking using PVA and masking tape.
The teabag paper for the paper mâché was left over from the Westgate project, but you could use good quality paper towels or the brown packing paper you get in Amazon boxes. I laminate the areas with several layers, especially the seams and joints. The more layers the stronger it becomes.
The goat skin leather I brought at a bargain bucket price at Tewksbury Medieval Festival before the lockdowns. The reptile print leather off-cuts or off-cuts came from the Gloucester Scrap Store years ago. You could use leather from an old coat or sofa. I made a peaked cap once out of an old leather satchel and A Voodoo inspired top hat out of an old faux snakeskin handbag I found on a bin.
I have no idea where the red fabric came from. Probably one of the pieces I pick up occasionally from the scrap store. You could use almost any fabric, but the heavier it is the better. A bit of old curtain material would be good.
The felt came from the scrape store too. I have lots of bits of felt around the house. Mostly green, I use it for all sorts of things. You’ve probably got some somewhere, if not use a bit of leather, swede side up for the sweatband.
The buckle on the hat band is one left over from a previous project years ago. You probably have an odd buckle about somewhere. I’m about to throw out some old wellies, but first I’ll remove and keep the buckles on them for my box.
The fabric braids came out of my box of braids and shiny things. I’ve collected this stuff for decades. It might have come from the scrape store, but I don’t know, it’s been sitting in that box for years. And I had just enough to do the job.
The gold metal braiding used for the cap edge; I think someone gave it to me a long time ago. I’ve used most of it but this was one of the last pieces sitting in my sewing box.
It remains surprisingly light, and strong, and Nikki said it’s surprisingly comfortable.
That’s it; the basics of a Czapka military hat built from the resources and junk around my house. Oh, and go join your local Scrape Store project, it’s better than Hobbycraft and it will save you a hell of a lot of money.
Go on, have a go.
Part two; Decorations.
This challenge is to decorate the Czapka to a level equal to the originals without spending too much money. I’m going to try to use as much stuff that I already have as possible.
- I need a big badge for the front.
- I need some swagged braid.
- I need something to make into a reasonable looking chin strap and the fixings to attach the chin strap to the temple sides.
- I also need a ‘hackle’ or feathers for the side.
- And a side badge, and maybe so other bling to jazz it up.
- Also, it’s got to shout Steampunk not Re-enactment.
- I have to keep the costs down.
The Badge.
The badge was the first thing I started and ended up, because of postage delays, the last thing I completed. the basis is an old fretworked clock face I had laying around for decades. Then I discovered that I still had some large MDF laser cut cogs left over from an abandoned project which looked pretty good with the clock face. But they needed bending into shape. The first one I tried to bend broke. I discovered that quickly immersing the cogs in boiling water and then bending them around a can to let them dry worked perfectly. The crown was something I swapped for some odds and ends with a fellow creative some time ago.
But this was to have the look of a Lancer, and the 17th's famous motto is 'Death or Glory,' with the skull and cross bones badge. So I sourced a skull and crossbones on line. It's a car badge from Amazon.
I assembled the whole thing and gave it several layers of gold spray paint. I admit to buying a new can of expensive spray paint as I wanted this to look really good.
Total spent; £8 plus some paint.
The swagged braid.
I brought two relativity inexpensive gold curtain tie-backs with nice tassels on them, and braided the cords together to make the swag. I did have some issues as I have never done this before but to get the cords long enough I had to cut and glue the cord ends together. One thing I learnt was tape the cord at the point you are going to cut very tightly. And pop some super glue on it before you cut.
Total spent; £7.
Chin Strap.
I thought long and hard about this. As real military chin straps can be very expensive. And most available from re-enactor suppliers are not what I needed. So I looked at Lady's Fashion Belts on the internet. This one cot about £5 from Amazon. Though I had to shorten it and backed it with leather. The strap has two fittings either side of he temple, these lion headed pieces were draw-pulls for £1.75 each from Temu, and they are ironically look exactly like the lion heads on real Czapkas. The hook to hold the chin strap on the right upper side was just a hook I made from some random bits I had from the scrap store.
Total spent on chinstrap and fittings; £8.50
The Hackle and Badge.
This is a standard British Army issue hackle I brought on line for about £7.
The Badge is our Steampunk Rocketeers regimental badge made by Beryl Furey-King Thimblebee Millinery. I glued this down heavily so I could use it to support the hackle.
Total spent; £7
Other bits.
The Deaths Head Moth is a broach from Amazon for about £11. Sprayed gold.
Total spent on bling and furnishings;
£41.50
(I did not include the paint as I already had gold paint I could have used)
Well that's it...
The finished Steampunk Rocketeer Lancers' Czapka.
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