I have these low profile cotton caps that are very stiff but don't sew out real well. The cap bends and bumps while sewing out and produces poor registration.
First thing is that the design needs to be digitized for the correct size, and for caps. I have tried resizing regular designs and have run into the problems you are talking about.
Unconstructed caps in general are a pain. But the correct way to sew caps...so they say... is center out and bottom up.
ya, center out sewing is the right way to sew caps/hats. which way can avoid the problems you meet.
the digitizing file should be set for hat. or the sewout should not be good.
regards,
Lydia
__________________ embroidery digitizing and recreating logos to vector file for screen printing crossstitch001@yahoo.com
The design should be under 2.5" high and should be at least .5" off the bill. Sometimes you have to run .75" up to make up for a wierd shaped, hard bill.
Before sewing, slide the front of the hat closer to the bill before you set your centerpoint, it will give you a little more room to clear the bill on the back of the head.
Fisher: The problem is more with the cap itself. The file sews out fine on 5 panel full caps but this particular cap has a lot of problems. It is very stiff up front. This is the exact cap. It just distorts when sewing on the front 2 panels. We even broke a titanium sharp point needle in it. The bill is really formed well into a circle. Not very flat at all which also gives me fits hooping it.
John: What do you mean when you say 'slide the front of the hat closer to the bill'?
I was able to get one cap to sew out at 500/spm and it looks pretty good. If we get too close to the bill the hat becomes very unstable and causes the needle to break. One good thing about a cap like this, small lettering comes out real sharp.
Before you hoop, stretch and manipulate the center seam. Try to soften it up.
When you put the hat on the machine and look at it from the side, you will notice that the front of the hat is not parallel to the sewing arm. It's higher as it gets close to the bill. Pushing the front of the hat toward the bill will help the front lay down a little better. This works better on unconstructed hats.
What kind of cap frame are you mounting them on. A Front only frame or a Wide area cap frame?
How many layers of cap stabilizer are you using? On an Unstructured Cap I usually us 2 layers. On structured caps I usually use only one and have gotten away with no stabilizer on small designs with good tight hooping.
Give us some details on the machine you are using?
Is the design mostly text and if so how big is it?
Sewing low profile cotton caps? 
