By Lonnie Allen on
Dec. 25, 2008
I make military name tapes, using a Brother Innovis 700EII home embroidery machine and would like to upgrade to an industrial machine. Can you recommend the best way to do this? I also would like to purchase name tapes with the Tiger Stripe background used for U.S. Air Force uniforms. Can you recommend a distributor?
Re: Military name tapes
I do a lot of Dog collars ... Similar Concept, I have a few commercial machines, I have a SWF 1501C (not recommended, its a hunk-a-junk) A 12-needle single head brother which I absolutely love, love it so much I just bought a 4 head brother this fall. I would go with brother. Most people don't like them because they are all PC driven (e.g. - you need an actual computer to drive them) but thats actually why I DO like them. I don't know where you are located, but brother is about 30 minutes from me, I had a major controller problem a few months ago, they were in my shop in under an hour, and had it fixed by the end of the day. I just can't say enough good about them...
I used to have a tajima, an OLD one, It also kept on truckin' Good machines, last forever, they are worth the extra money, as hard as it is to believe. ha-ha
SWF = Seldom Works Fine .... Have problems? Which you will, Leave a voicemail and wait for someone to get back to you, DAYS later ... My machine was delivered un-threaded, with software problems, and a blown servo, it was a sink or swim situation. To make a long story short, I had to have my attorney "speak" with them. They did replace my machine, but it was a nightmare.
As far as a distributor for the fabric tape ... not really my thing, so don't know what to tell you there.
Good luck, don't hesitate to shoot me questions.
Re: Military name tapes
PS ... Forgot to mention ... with a commercail machine, Get the clamp system, its expensive but worth every penny, it makes collars (name tape) a snap.