What kind of thread to use for DIY vinyl bow supported headliner?

[Telkwa]

My wife is willing to help me try to make a new vinyl headliner.  First thing she said was; what kind of thread?  I've spent an hour googling and can't find any info.  Anyone made their own non-foam backed vinyl headliner?  What kind of thread did you use?

 

And can it be done on a regular sewing machine?

 

EDIT: Found a .pdf about building Cessna headliners.  He said use dacron thread.

[oldskoolvws]

I was going to say dacron or nylon.

[Ratwagon1600]

I was going to say dacron or nylon.

+1 for Dacron.

 

Strong, pliable and generally a good all round thread.

 

Sometimes used in sailmaking and a bunch of other applications.

[MikeRL411]

Or transparent polyester thread.  If you don't get all the tucks and corners right, it's transparent!  No stray threads showing.  No worry about thread fading and showing mismatched colors on the finished vinyl header.

 

P.S. I also use it for rigging on model sailing ships and antennae and rigging wires on model biplanes.

[Telkwa]

OK, thanks for the great replies.  I really want to start putting pieces back onto this truck instead of continuing to take stuff off, and now this headliner problem. 

 

Of course, if I'd known anything about the likelihood that 27 year old vinyl would need to be retired, I coulda started on this a couple of weeks ago instead of piddling around with other things. 

 

Any of you guys actually sewed together a vinyl headliner?  My wife doesn't know if her old Singer has the horsepower, or will pull vinyl through like it does cloth.  The .pdf I found (you can google "headliner cessna airmod") mentioned that he likes to use a piece of dacron canvas for the bow loops.  So that would be sewing thru two layers of vinyl and the dacron canvas.  If I knew of a way to heat weld the vinyl together I'd try that, but I suspect that's not something most people can do at home.

 

Vinyl that's similar to the original (perforated, no foam backing) is available