How do you make a lining and holder with foam?

[B.Greco]

I have this.



And I need to put the lining in so it wil hold the communicator and two power cells.
No idea how to start off even...
Help

[Narsil]

The best bet is to use two or more layers of foam, a solid one for the base and build up as many other layers as you need with appropriate cut-outs. Thsi way is much easier and neater than trying to scoop out the required shape in one go.

Then you need to drape the covering fabric over the cut-out, obviously the cut-out will need to be a little oversized to accommodate the thickness of the fabric.

[Mr Peter Harrow, Esq]

Another option is to cut a thin piece of plyboard, use that as a templte for you first layer of foam and cover that with your cloth hiding the joins on the flip side. Do the same with the foam but have the joins on the visible face. You then place the plyboard over the foam, all joins are hidden neatly and the plyboard protects the face of the foam from unwanted indentation, and making it easy to replace the lining in the future, you merely take the plyboard off.

[Maets]

I just did my first foam with lining for my Duelling Pistol set



You can kind of see the results here.  I will take a picture of what the foam looks like without the lining.

It turned out to be easy to do with two tips that I had for my soldering iron.  Both were flat blades, one basically vertical and one horizontal. 

I used a 1 inch thick piece that I cut a 1/2 deep recess in.  First I simply laid the piece on the foam and then traced with a sharpie.  Then using the vertical blade cut around the tracing to about a half inch.  Then using the horizontal blade cut out the piece as I slowly pulled it back. 
Hope that helps a little.

[B.Greco]

Thanks everyone. I now have the foam itself cut out. Any tips on lining it with fabric without wrinkles or pulls? This felt is low grade, so cutting it is feasible but somewhat of a last resort. I learned from my last project that it doesnt like being cut and wont play along nicely.

[Narsil]

Obviously to conform to a three dimensional shape with no wrinkles the fabric needs to stretch to some degree, the deeper the cutout the more stretch you need.

There are three main options.

1) if the shape is fairly 'boxy' you can construct the fabric in sections. In this case you need to be pretty accurate and use a fabric which will hide the joins well. One thing about felt is that if you have neat joins to start with you can often conceal them completely by carefully brushing the felt over with a stiff brush as it is non-woven you can effectively join it back together fairly seamlessly. Something with a fairly deep pile like fleece should also work well.

2) Use a fabric with a lot of stretch in it. You should be able to stretch felt to a fair extent by carefully steaming it and holding it in place as it cools, although you should also make allowances for possible shrinkage.

3) Cut the material fairly loose and use the wrinkles as part of the look, some fabrics like velvet and taffeta look really good when they have a lot of wrinkles and folds in them.

The other issue is how you fix the fabric down. Obviously you want to avoid using any adhesive which is going to soak into the fabric, how much of a problem this is really depends on the properties of the fabric itself, thick felt should take glue without too many problems whereas something thinner will require more care. Double sided tape is probably the most forgiving adhesive for this task and should hold most fabrics without a problem.

The other optinon is to use mechanical fasteners like stitching, upholstery tacks loops and toggles etc. How practical this is will depend on teh construction of your box and foam insert.