The Johnny Do It Yourself Wiki!

Repairing Vintage Accessories:

Technique #1 - Reshaping vintage accessories

Got a mangled hat or bent reins? Try boiling water! All injection molded plastic retains a little 'memory' of the shape it was originally molded in. The trick is to heat up the mangled piece enough to reshape it.

Here you see a Johnny Range hat that is in poor shape. Either left in the sun or in a hot attic toooooooo long.

To reshape it, I heated a cup of water in the microwave to boiling and then dropped the hat into it for about 20 seconds. I took the hat out and with a paper towel as a buffer, I started to reshape the hat. When it was about the original shape I ran cold water over it to 'set' the new shape.

Be careful with the hot water and don't leave your piece in too long. This method should also work with the hard accessories.

Technique #2

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