{"id":108,"date":"2016-07-07T20:42:53","date_gmt":"2016-07-07T20:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brentblack.com\/cart\/?page_id=108"},"modified":"2016-07-14T00:16:38","modified_gmt":"2016-07-14T00:16:38","slug":"tour-apaleador-softens-the-panama-hats","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/stage.brentblack.com\/cart\/hat-lore-overview\/tour-how-a-panama-hat-is-made\/tour-apaleador-softens-the-panama-hats\/","title":{"rendered":"The Apaleador Softens the Hats"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"tour_12_01_apalliv1\"

Liverpool<\/p><\/div>\n

The apaleador<\/em> uses mallets made of dense tropical hardwood to\u00a0pound the hats. The mallets are heavy. He pounds hard. Yes, that is a stone\u00a0beneath the hats. This makes no sense, does it?<\/p>\n

He takes beautiful, finely woven straw hats, puts them directly against a\u00a0hard, rough stone, then pounds the bejabbers out of them with heavy wood\u00a0mallets.<\/p>\n

My first thought was that he was called the apaleador<\/em> because what he was\u00a0doing was appalling. That\u2019s not it. Apalear<\/em> means to beat up, to\u00a0thrash.<\/p>\n

The pounding softens the straw, makes it more flexible. If he does not pound\u00a0hard enough, it does no good. If he pounds too hard, it damages the\u00a0hats.<\/p>\n

\n

\"tour_12_02_apalnf13\"<\/p>\n

The apaleador to the left is Nestor Franco. He was one of the best. He\u00a0passed away more than ten years ago. Too many years of too much alcohol was\u00a0what everyone said. Too bad. His hats were beautiful.<\/p>\n

Here he is folding them in half. He nests several inside each other. See the\u00a0three folded, nested hats beneath the one he is folding?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"tour_12_03_apalnf19\"<\/p>\n

Look beside his right foot. A brown piece of paper is covered with sulfur\u00a0powder. You can see the yellow powder on his hands. He has taken up a large\u00a0pinch of sulfur with his right hand and is sprinkling it on the hats. He will\u00a0use his left hand to shuffle the hats while he dusts each hat with the sulfur\u00a0powder.<\/p>\n

\n

\"tour_12_04_apalnf17\"When the hats are all dusted with sulfur, Nestor begins to pound them. The\u00a0loud bonking of the mallet hitting the hats and the stone is very distinctive.\u00a0Each different mallet and stone combination has its own particular\u00a0\u201cnote.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Nestor was a heavy drinker, he probably did not do the pounding first\u00a0thing in the morning. NOT something you would want to do with a\u00a0<\/span>hangover.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"tour_12_05_apalnf18\"\"tour_12_06_apalnf6\"\"tour_12_07_apalnf16\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

A\"tour_12_08_apalnf15\"bove left: He continually shuffles the hats, rearranging the order, making\u00a0sure each hat spends time on top, on bottom, and in the middle.<\/span><\/p>\n

Above center: Nestor unfolds the hats, opening them full again.<\/p>\n

After opening the hats, he nests them inside each other then pounds the\u00a0crowns again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"tour_12_10_apalliv4\"This is Liverpool again, the apaleador<\/em> on the right. His assistant on the\u00a0left is his son. Liverpool is universally respected as having fine\u00a0skills.<\/p>\n

\n

\"tour_12_12_apalliv6a\"\"tour_12_13_apalliv5\"\"tour_12_15_14_Composite\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"tour_12_16_apalliv7\"Whew. Hard work. Liverpool takes a breather.<\/p>\n

You would be shocked how heavy those mallets are. Especially if you had\u00a0foolishly placed several of them in the floor of your hallway as a decorative\u00a0accent then decided to go for a drink of water at night in the dark and bashed\u00a0the toes of your right foot into them with enough force to kick a 40-yard field\u00a0goal. They didn\u2019t budge a micron. I thought my toes were damaged beyond\u00a0repair and would have to be amputated.<\/p>\n

Below, the apaleador<\/em> folds hats in half and nests them\u00a0together. Then he pounds. And pounds. And pounds. I winced every time the\u00a0mallet came crashing down and a loud BONK echoed off the brick walls. Those are\u00a0my hats he is trying to destroy.<\/p>\n

\n

\"tour_12_17_IMG_6121\"\"tour_12_18_IMG_6119\"\"tour_12_19_IMG_6122\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"tour_12_20_IMG_6114\"\"tour_12_21_IMG_6142\"\"tour_12_22_IMG_6098\"\"tour_12_23_IMG_6050\"\"tour_12_24_IMG_6060\"<\/p>\n

The apaleador<\/em> pauses frequently to sprinkle more sulfur\u00a0over, on, and in-between the hats. This process of pounding the sulfur into the\u00a0hats has a much greater whitening effect than does the bleaching. I was\u00a0skeptical when told this. But I personally witnessed the freakish phenomenon\u00a0and it is true. I put in a call to Fox Mulder but was told he is no longer\u00a0available. Ripley didn\u2019t believe me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"tour_12_25_IMG_6161\"\"tour_12_26_IMG_6124\"\"tour_12_27_IMG_6086\"\"tour_12_28_IMG_6168\"\"tour_12_29_IMG_6130\"\"tour_12_30_IMG_6064\"\"tour_12_31_IMG_6047\"\"tour_12_33_32_Composite\"<\/p>\n

Pound, shuffle, sprinkle sulfur powder. Pound, shuffle,\u00a0sprinkle sulfur powder. Hit too hard and ruin the hats.<\/p>\n

\n

\"tour_12_34_gabap8_IMG_6114\"\"tour_12_35_gabap16_IMG_6142\"\"tour_12_36_IMG_6176\"\"tour_12_37_38_Composite\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

See that big rock the apaleador<\/em> is using to pound the hats\u00a0on? That\u2019s not his rock. He borrowed it for the day. I assumed it must be\u00a0an exemplary rock to be worth carrying across town. So I examined it carefully\u00a0from all angles. It is a good rock. A fine rock. Perhaps even a truly excellent\u00a0rock. But I was not jealous. I did not covet the rock. I had no desire to own\u00a0one just like it. Good thing. How would I explain a really big rock to airport\u00a0security?<\/p>\n

\"tour_13_teaser\"Next: The cortador<\/em> now uses half a razor to give\u00a0the hats a close shave.<\/p>\n

Next Page<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The apaleador uses mallets made of dense tropical hardwood to\u00a0pound the hats. The mallets are heavy. He pounds hard. Yes, that is a stone\u00a0beneath the hats. This makes no sense, does it? He takes beautiful, finely woven straw hats, puts them directly against a\u00a0hard, rough stone, then pounds the bejabbers out of them with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":1053,"parent":86,"menu_order":23,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"tour-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-108","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stage.brentblack.com\/cart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stage.brentblack.com\/cart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stage.brentblack.com\/cart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stage.brentblack.com\/cart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stage.brentblack.com\/cart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/stage.brentblack.com\/cart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3616,"href":"https:\/\/stage.brentblack.com\/cart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/108\/revisions\/3616"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stage.brentblack.com\/cart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/86"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stage.brentblack.com\/cart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stage.brentblack.com\/cart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}