Hooping Ball Caps

[LawsonPoling]

Hello all, newbie here (again) - I have a Melco Bravo machine and the Melco 270 degree cap frame. When I hoop semi-structured ball caps, there is always a considerable amount of air beteeen the front of the cap and the needle plate once I mount it to my machine. If I begin embroidering 'hands off' I get many thread breaks at the beginning of any given stitch run. If I am careful to keep my fingers clear of the needle and press the cap front down onto the needle plate when the stitch run begins, then this problem goes away. Suffice it to say that my jobs would go a LOT smoother if I did not have to compromise my fingers and baby sit the beginning of each stitch run. I would love to hear suggestions on how to get past this problem area.

Thanks!

[Wishes]

If you watch the video on this website and following the directions exactly that should take care of a lot of your issues. To help get the hat to conform a bit tighter pull down on the back of the cap while rubbing your other hand back and forth over the front of cap in front of the bill. Do this several times. That will help a lot. Be sure your pressure foot is moved all the way down and up two notches. The last suggestion is to go to tools, settings, thread feed and change the autofeed lower limit between 3-4 for unstructured caps and 5-7 for structured caps. That will allow more thread to feed out of the red rollers to allow for the thickness of the cap. See if any of that helps.
Margaret