It takes six weeks to make an Akubra, passing through 60 pairs of hands in the Kempsey factory. Hear from Production Manager Stephen Keir V who was born into the business.
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00:00It takes six weeks to make the iconic Aussie Akubra hat, passing through 60 pairs of hands in the factory.
00:08Well in there is where we begin forming our hats. The fur is brought in by the fur processing plant and then it gets formed onto a coat by a re-exhaust fan.
00:19Then after that, the hat starts a felting process. They'll go through a number of machines to essentially shrink the hat,
00:25but technically it's felting into lots of the fibres of the hat ball.
00:29And so that gets done through three different machines in there, and then we move on to the fade factory that will be there.
00:38Through the wedge section, it's all about sort of felting and shrinking the hat, bringing it down to size.
00:43They start out about this big, we bring them in about that. By the time they're finished through there,
00:48they also go through the blocking shop where they put the initial sort of shapes in the hat,
00:52so we have the grout and where the brim gets lessled out. There's a process through there,
00:56and then they also get thinned with shellac and then waterproofy as well.
01:07The first part of the sanding, finishing process.
01:11And then from there, it goes into the dry room for about six hours. It's 90 degrees, so the hat gets heated up.
01:18They reactivate all the shellac and waterproof we put in it before.
01:22After that, it starts into the finishing section where the hat's sanded, polished.
01:27They also get shaped into what their style is going to end up looking like.
01:32They'll get their brims pressed, their grouts pressed, and that brings it here into the finishing section.
01:39Once the hat's all shaped and finished up, they start the trimming process.
01:43So they add in the sweatband, and then depending on the style, they'll get different eyelet arrangements
01:49or binding around the edge, different sort of trimmings.
01:52They get the sweatband, they'll get the eyelets, binding, and then they'll get the outer band.
01:57Then once that's done, they'll get tidied up, the lining glued in, and then sent down for dispatch for packing.