A crowning achievement

Southern Living, May 2003 by McKinney, Wanda

Get hardheaded with this Kentucky hatmaker's handturned wooden chapeaus.

You're taking me to see a hatmaker?" I asked my fellow traveler somewhat incredulously as he drove me through Kentucky. "What's so special about that? Are they feather hats?"

"No," he said.

"Well, are they leather hats?"

"No," he replied.

"Does she make them from lace and net, then cover them with fake birds and butterflies? Do they have cats in them, A la Dr. Seuss?" I asked in an exasperated tone.

"Wrong and wrong again," he said. "The hatmaker is a he, and he carves hats out of wood."

I was actually struck speechless at this revelation. Hats carved out of wood? "Is this some Pinocchio-like fable come to life? Or some sort of Rumpelstiltskin-spinning-straw-- into-gold kind of thing?" I asked with newfound curiosity.

But the head-covering story was no fractured fairy tale. Chris Ramsey, of Somerset, Kentucky, does indeed carve wooden hats that people can wear. The governor of Kentucky wore one to the last Kentucky Derby, and such notables as Ashley Judd and Hank Williams, Jr., have requested the carefully sculpted creations that sell under the burly name of Knot-Head.

Chris's home serves as his workshop and retail store, where his artistic skills and lathe transform his basement into a sculptor's studio. Using native Kentucky wood from felled trees, Chris has turned heads far and wide with his unusual noggin toppers.

"How did you get started?" I asked as I picked up a light-as-a-- feather Aussie hat, weighing only 5 1/2 ounces. "My wife wanted a turned wooden bowl," Chris said. "As I was sanding it, I noticed it looked like a hat."

And that, as they say, was that. Chunks of walnut, maple, and cherry metamorphose into such creations as cowboy hats, baseball caps, top hats, derbies, and garden hats. Chris also makes miniature versions, as well as bowls and vases.

"it takes 35 to 40 hours to make one hat," said Chris, who gets most of the wood he uses from tree trimmers and loggers in Kentucky. Chris carves the hat to an incredible thinness of 3/32 inch (as thin as a credit card). "I use sound and light to tell when to stop," he said of the process. "I can also tell by touch if it's getting thin enough."

After a hat has been completed, Chris sands it and then places it on a custom-made jig for final shaping. Rubber bands and heat lamps are used to gently curve the brim. Hand sanding follows, and finally 20 coats of lacquer finish the beautiful topper and render it waterproof.

Chris is especially proud of an English walnut cowboy hat that he made for President George W. Bush. But the head count of all his wonderful work looms large, as he sells in several galleries across the country, from his home, and through his Web site.

So what's the wood turner's lone frustration? "The only thing I can't do is a cattleman's crease on top of the cowboy hat," Chris said regretfully.

I couldn't decide exactly which style of hat to buy. A derby or a top hat? A baseball cap or a lady's garden hat? Maybe even a cowboy hat? "Ashley Judd is getting a ball cap," Chris informed me. Well, it's safe to say, if it's good enough for a Judd head, it's certainly good enough for me.

Knot-Head: 212 Ohio Street, Somerset, KY 42501; (606) 677-2466 or www. knot-head.com. Prices: $100 for miniature hats; $600 for custom-made, full-size hats; $70-$100 for small wooden bowls; $2 for children's wooden toy tops.