What happens if the chin strap on your straw hat breaks away from your hat while you are on the beach? You end up running after it down to the water and pray that it doesn’t float away! If the chin straps are not secure, then this will happen every time. This was the case with one of our customers. We received a panic call this spring from a new customer who had 450 straw hats with rusted out grommets which hold the chin strap in place. In this case, the grommet would break apart from the straw and so would the chin strap.
The customer suggested that a grommet replacement would work with a stainless grommet to solve this problem. We immediately engaged the Darn It Apparel Repair team to assist in this rework. The solution, though not an easy one, was to replace the grommets on each one of the hats and re-string the chin strap once complete.
After testing this process a few times, we realized that the most difficult part of this repair was the removal of the grommet itself from the hat. We needed to be extremely careful when removing each grommet so that we wouldn’t rip any of the straw around it. It Worked!
Our Apparel Repair team carefully removed the two grommets from each side of the hat and removed the chin strap. Our customer sourced new larger stainless grommets for us to snap on in the same area as the old ones. We needed to be very careful throughout this process as well so that we could grasp the straw all the way around each of the new grommets. Once the new grommets were placed on the hats, we then restrung the hats with the original chin straps and tied them off. Pull tests of each hat were performed to ensure that the grommets and the straps were securely fastened.Disaster was averted and we were able to complete this process in just a few days. So don’t panic when your grommets get rusty, call Darn It’s Apparel Inspection and Apparel Repair teams to assist in getting your items back onto the shelves in first quality condition.
