Baseball Hat Logo Assistance

January 22, 2013 5:23 AM

Please help me with my baseball hats - the logo/crest is "dented"

Greetings All -

Minor issue to most, but a concern to me. I like to wear a lot of ball caps. I have a variety of them that I have collected over the years. I have an issue with a couple of them and I am looking for suggestions. I have a couple of nice quality hats with nice, crest logos sew on them. However, with a couple of them, the front part (around where the logo is sewn), the logo portion of the hat has almost "collapsed" and forever looks 'dented'. I have taken a couple of pictures here, here and here to give you an idea. Hopefully the pics show what I mean (and this doesn't get fixed when I put it on).

Again, it might not seem like a big deal, but it is significantly noticeable when I am wearing them.

Can anyone offer suggestions how this might be fixed/adjusted? Thanks!

posted by dbirchum to sports, hobbies, & recreation (6 answers total)

Im' sure it looks fine when it is on your head, but if nothing else, go to a beauty school and see if they will sell you a bunch of those styrofoam heads. Hopefully it will keep it blocked better
posted by timsteil at 6:05 AM on January 22

You could maybe starch them or something.

Alternately, you could put some sort of stiffener inside, either permanently or in between wearings. This could range from a piece of thin cardboard (which many new hats come with anyway) to some sort of interfacing used in tailoring to that plastic mesh used in crafts.

To me, at any rate, having a worn-in ballcap is a feature, not a bug, but then again I don't like other things about how caps look on my (large, female) head ;)
posted by Madamina at 6:31 AM on January 22

I'd get the hat somewhat damp (like with a spray mister) inside and out, and then cram some fabric or newsprint or some other sort of soft material into the hat until the crown is the shape you want it to be and then let it dry. You may get some color bleeding (especially from dark embroidery onto light fabric), but if you've ever washed the hat or worn it in a decent rain, it should be fine.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:24 AM on January 22

I don't own any baseball caps, so I can't speak to how to wash them, however this cap washing frame-thingy seems like it might be a cheap handy way to encourage it back to it's proper shape . . .
posted by MeiraV at 7:30 AM on January 22

Looks like the thread of the logo has shrunk when the hat hasn't. I used to wash my caps (in cold only) and pushed a towel as tightly in as possible into it to dry (air dry) and it helped keep the shape. It might be like that forever since the shrinking (if that is what) is causing the pulling, you may not be able to get it back to its original shape. It's worth a try to steam it and pull it back into shape. It might take a bit of patience though.
posted by Yellow at 11:40 AM on January 22

It looks like the logo embroidery is too heavy for the hat fabric to support. Nthing either shoring up the inside with something stiffer, and/or storing them on some sort of round form to push that part back out.
posted by mon-ma-tron at 12:53 PM on January 22