Tutorial in pictures: changing a top hat's color

For the current production at work, we purchased two grey felt top hats. Ostensibly, they were two different sizes, and two different colors. However, when they arrived, what the manufacturer called respectively "grey" and "dark grey" turned out to be essentially the same color of felt. No good! They had to look different for the different characters' costumes. It fell to me to change the color of one of the hats to a darker smokey grey.

Except, they were purchased top hats, factory blocked and constructed, so i couldn't dye the hatbody and reblock the hats (something i've done in the past with felt hats for which i owned the desired block shapes). We don't own the curled brim block nor the flared "bell" topper crown block for the desired shape. Our designer, Bill Black, wanted to retain the shape as-is, just change the color. So, i had to make this happen without reblocking, or deforming the shape of the hat.

But how? I have seen too many horrific, ruined felt hats that have fallen victim to icky spray-painting--thick coats of stinky enamel and the like--and decided to do a tutorial on a better-quality method for color-changing a blocked felt hat.

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