Multi line table header

Question

How can I make it so that my table headers will be rendered over multiple lines if it consists of multiple words?

This is what I have so far:

public class MultiLineHeaderRenderer extends JList implements TableCellRenderer
{

    @Override
    public Component getTableCellRendererComponent(
            JTable table, Object value, boolean isSelected, boolean hasFocus, int row, int column)
    {
        setFont(table.getFont());
        String str = (value == null) ? "" : value.toString();
        BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new StringReader(str));
        String line = "";
        int character;
        Vector v = new Vector();
        try 
        {
            character = br.read();
            while (character != -1) 
            {
                System.out.println("character = " + (char) character);
                System.out.println("character = " + character);
                line = line + String.valueOf((char) character);
                if((char) character == ' ')
                {
                    System.out.println("hello");
                    v.addElement(line);
                    line = "";
                }
                character = br.read();
            }
            v.addElement(line);
        }
        } catch (IOException ex) {
          ex.printStackTrace();
        }
        setListData(v);
        return this;
    }
}

However this doesn't show anything at all.

If instead of the try block I do:

        v.addElement("line1");
        v.addElement("line2");

It displays both lines as expected (albeit it's ugly, it just has a white background, no lines to separate columns, not center justified, etc.)

What am I doing wrong? How do I implement multi line table headers?

Edit: I've updated the try block, it's now giving me just the first word and nothing else.