Hi,

I'm Jason, I'm working on a lounge chair project and will be skinning the main bucket in a 2x2 V-Twill 3k 6oz/203.43gsm cloth. I'm not certain how i should set up my part so that i can easily wrap both sides with as little frustration as possible. I'm planning on skinning the front and back as two separate pieces, with them meeting up along the middle on the radii around the perimeter of the chair. Would it be smarter to skin one side at a time? Or would it be better to skin them at the same time? any tips tricks and advice are welcome!




Thanks,
-Jason

I think that you might find it quite difficult to lay down a single piece of fabric on the inner surface at least, especially when laying down onto a tacky surface that might try and 'grab' the fabric before you've had chance to position things. Ideally, you'd need to work from as close to the centre as possible outwards, so it'd be handy to have another pair of hands close by to hold the fabric off the surface whilst getting it down. 

The problem area could well be the meeting point of the back of the chair and the horizontal section and it looks quite easy to get things crimped-up here, which would likely cause some distortion on the sections leading away from there also. If getting a near perfect weave alignment is key, it might be worth considering laying down two separate pieces, with a slight overlap at that horizontal/back meeting point. One of the fabric sections would need to be neatly trimmed using a template, so that it can neatly follow the curve of the meeting point and cover the excess of the first section.
Any slight difference in fabric height could then be dealt with during the coating and flatting stage and shouldn't be too prominent given the join location. You will have a visible join line, but it might be a better route to getting a better result overall in terms of the uniformity of the weave pattern

It might also be very difficult to get front and back sections to meet neatly along such a relatively narrow edge. Getting the very edge of the second face to stick closely to the edge of the section already laid feels tricky and achieving this whilst not causing the edge to fray or fall apart also feels very difficult as well

A compromise approach might be to lay down the front facing side first and allow for a large-ish overlap all around that you can stick/tape to the reverse. This excess fabric is likely to cure with a few creases, but these could be sanded back later and the reverse side fabric laid over it and trimmed as closely as possible to the reverse side edge?
Again, getting this part to look uniform and neat wouldn't be easy, but it might present less of a challenge than trying to get both front and back sections of fabric to neatly align right at the edge. 

Another possible alternative, once your fabric is laid and the initial resin coats have cured, might be to apply a neat bead of black gel coat (or a contrasting colour?) around the edge of the part using neat and sharp masking. This could then be sanded smooth and coated over. Again, not a simple thing to get looking neat, but it could help cover up any unavoidable features created by the overlapping of fabrics in this particular area. 

Overall, it looks a tricky project to get looking good even if you have quite a bit of practise already under your belt, so be prepared for some trial and error and please take the suggestions above only as some possible alternatives should your initial ideas not work out as hoped for. 

It's worth considering different fabrics also. I'm not certain if the 'v' fabric is stabilised akin to the 'Profinish' that EC sells but, if it is, you might find it difficult to conform neatly on such a shape. If that is the case, you might find a 'normal' 240g twill gives you a bit more drape whilst still be quite stable and less prone to falling apart than normal 200g twills