Fonts on hats

[Lois]

I've been reading the emails for several months and have gotten alot of wonderful info. Now I'm in need of help.
I'm doing a cap with a design across the front - no problem. The lettering is going across part of the design. The letters are 1/4" and I'm using Melco Script. The letters that go across the design seem to show the underlay - the letters get very narrow. I have the pull comp increased and the column increased. I've tried the material thickness from 5-16 and tried it on auto. Any hints?
Thanks
Lois Malone
Master Stitch
Medford Oregon

[signman]

Some quick notes on what I"ve learned...and small letters are the death of me!
Rod and Sharon stopped in last week, and gave me the greatest bit of info...for lettering, in the properties window where you set pull comp-under that is a little box for 'minimum width' I think-and mine was defaulting to zero! He said he sets it to 4 for normal, 10 for small lettering. This keeps your serifs and curves from getting too small. Also, do NOT add ANY underlayment-the font already has it in. What you probably are seeing is the 'border' underlining and it is not necessary.
As your lettering goes across the design, suddenly you have 2-3 times the density for that thread to pull through, and if you leave it set on manual, it is pulling too tight. Leave it on auto, get rid of all underlayment, change the minimum thickeness or width, and see what happens. I'll bet where your lettering is on top of the design is also on top of the seam? You may have to break the lettering up-by typing in separately the lettering 'off' the design and 'on' the design-so you can change the settings just where it is needed. I've done that before and had good results. But using auto, no underlayment, and the width setting seems to do the trick now!

[Lois]

Thanks a bunch!! I will give it a try. You are right - the lettering is across the seam.........
Lois

[signman]

I'm in my office late tonite-finishing up some signs for the Opera
House...so if you aren't sure how to split the lettering, let me know. email me off post and I'll send you my phone number.
[email protected]
And I think if you don't use auto tension, and want to control the
tension manually, you set everything in design shop to 'sew by color' and assign the MT for each color to compensate for the seam.
I know once we got the auto tension and program to work right, and the machine fine tuned...it worked 'okay', and then when Rod
showed me the minimum stitch setting, the hats I did last week
went as smoooooth as butter-right over a multiple seam on full 'constructed' hat with backing besides that!