DeCou Studios flange stand for blocking brimmed hats

If you've followed this blog for a while, the name DeCou Studios should ring a bell. Operated by master woodworker and mechanical engineer Mark DeCou, the studio produces a range of hatters tools that you pretty much can't get anywhere else, unless you buy old ones off eBay or specialty used-millinery-tool sites like Homegroan.

I started small, with a runner-down, puller-down, and foot tolliker.

Next up, i saved the money for a custom rounding jack, for cutting uniform brim widths.

And now, i'm apparently the first hatmaker in the country to have commissioned a flange stand. This is excellent news for the hatmaking community, because it means that now, he's figured out the method for manufacture and the pricing, and any of y'all that needs one can buy a brand-new one, too!

If you're asking, "What's a flange stand?", it's possible that you're a novice milliner or casual reader, but it's possible that you're someone who's been waiting for one of these to make your life easier for years and just never known it.

Because a theatrical craftsperson works across a range of disciplines (not just hatmaking but also maskmaking, cordwaining, dyeing, etc), I often block maybe a dozen hats a year, give or take. I worked without a flange stand for ages, just making-do by stacking up books or knocking together something out of scrap wood that only needed to last for a week. I just needed something to support a brim block (or brim flange [1]) long enough to block one or two hats.

Then three years ago, one of my students (Randy Handley of handyhatter) got the millinery fever, began bidding on hat blocks and tools like mad, and won an auction on eBay for an old flange stand. We blocked a couple hats on it and i was sold. Even being an antique, it was sturdier than making-do methods, and the oval shape allowed me to get purchase all the way around the brim without worrying about barking my knuckles on some knocked-together box corner. The flange stand was on my list. Then, Randy went and finished his MFA, dangit, and he and his hat blocks were on their way out the door of my studio! Time to stop making-do, and time to invest in one of these.

( historical reference image, and comparison photos of old and new flange stands )

I didn't go ahead and block the brim on that cherry red derby, because i'm recovering from a flare-up of RSI in my wrist, and i'm not willing (or probably able) to use my hands with the force required to block the felt until i've fully recovered. I'm also on vacation for a month (as in traveling, starting in a couple days), so i won't actually be blocking hats on this stand until August. One of my students is using it this week to block a Panama fedora brim, though, so she'll have some feedback for me before then, i'm sure.

Having blocked brims on the antique stand of Randy's, i can tell just by handling the DeCou Studio stand that it's dramatically superior, in terms of its sturdiness and ability to withstand the pressure of brim blocking by hand. I could explain the particulars, but i'm not a woodworker so i'd just be paraphrasing Mark, so instead i'll quote him on his item description at his Etsy site:

1. In my design, all wood grain is aligned in the same direction. The major problem I found with the old Flange Stands, is that they were assembled with pieces of wood going in opposing grain directions. Ok, so you make hats, I work in wood, and so you ask, "Why does it matter what direction the grain is aligned?" Wood moves cross-ways significantly more than it moves length-wise. Wood swells and shrinks with humidity and the seasons, so a good woodworker is constantly concerned about every direction that wood moves, and designs accordingly. This grain alignment design means that I used more wood (more scrap), but the end result is the best solution I can figure out that will give better longevity to the flange stand. So, I eliminated places where end grain would be glued to side grain, and avoided all cross grain glueing. Make sense?

2. Modern waterproof PVA wood glue was used. The type of wood glue that is used is critical to how the items will hold together. I used the waterproof formula to hold up to the steam and damp hat felt that is present in a Hat Making process.

3. I used heavy gauge 4" long shank screws to reinforce each glue line. Each screw head is covered up with a glued in dowel end.

4. The last special design detail is the overall look of the Flange Stand. I have found that Hat Makers prefer to use tools that both work well, and have the "look" of the old vintage tools. Hat Makers tell me that they take pride in the way their shop looks with nicely built tools, specifically ones that look like vintage tools. So, no plastic, no plywood, no square boxes, and my design is a flange stand that has the style of an old one.

5. Sizing. Let's face it, if you are making hats with vintage equipment, you already know that people generally have bigger heads than they did one hundred years ago. So, my Flange Stand is designed to hold a size 8 hat. If you need a bigger hat than that, let me know and I will build a bigger flange stand for you.

6. Vintage Pin Sizing. My flange Stand uses 9.75" top pin spacing, and will fit nearly every vintage flange. If your flange doesn't fit this size, let me know and I will make a flange stand that fits your special sizing needs.

7. Stackable Height: For most applications, a 5.25" tall Flange Stand will work just fine, and leaves a nice height for ironing out the brim on top of your flange. However, if you need a taller one, or a shorter one, just let me know and I will eagerly build it for you. To assist those that make tall Top Hats, my Flange Stand design incorporates the ability to stack them. So, there are heavy duty brass pins on the top, and steel reinforced pin holes on the bottom. This allows you to stack them. Typically sizing for the height of the stackable components are 2", 4", and 5.25". If you need something other than that, let me know.

I think his woodgrain description makes perfect sense for theatrical milliners, since we know about the effects of grain orientation in a fabric context--how cutting on the straight of grain or crossgrain or bias allows the fabric to behave differently when sewn, or allows the buckram to mold differently--so it follows that woodgrain would have a similar effect on the finished product.

So, if you've been blocking on an antique stand or makeshift stacks of wood or whatever, rejoice, because now you can buy a brand new one, much improved in design and sturdiness than any old one you might luck into online. I'll probably revisit this topic in a year's time, once i've blocked a season's worth of hats on it... For now though, thanks Mark, for making available yet another "lost" tool of our trade to modern-day milliners and hatters!




[1] Theatrical milliners call these brim blocks. Hatters call them brim flanges. They're two terms for the same thing: wooden doughnuts that you block hat brims on.