Boat Upholstery Help

[tina]

Hi any ideas on how to put lettering on boat upholstery? i have an amaya and am still pretty new to it.I have moved and would like to take advantage of the boating industry in my area but im not having very good luck with just stock lettering-thanks!

[Aaron]

There are dozens of River Boat manufacturers around here so we do a reasonable amount of them. We put logos on vinyl before they make the seats so it makes it easy. One of the makers uses a different material but most are vinyl. Getting a nice crisp looking logo or lettering on this thick vinyl is very difficult. I normally use edge walk and zig zag underlay and usually I digitize it myself so I can adjust til its right.

As far as thread goes we found the Madeira Poly to be one of the best to not fade in the sun. I use a few basic colors (Black, white, beige, lt and dk gray) and have sewn these out on sample material and left them in the sun for 30 days. I tested Madeira, RA and ARC and the Madeira was the best and R/A faded real bad. I have since started using Isacord thread and haven't tested it yet cause I haven't been doing much boat stuff anymore which is fine with me. I would never guarantee that the thread won't fade cause it usially gets lots of sun and some people don't bother to cover up when not using the boat.

[tina]

thank you so much for the ideas- i am going to try a few soon and i will update this as soon as i do
thanks again