I used unshrunk 100% cotton muslin on my Wright 1902 glider. Purchased from
Ross Walton at Vintage Aero. The specs were 1.7oz, 213 tpi, unbleached,
slightly off-white. This fabric was custom-milled in Belgium to match the
specs. of the Wrights' Pride of the West fabric.

1.7oz is waaay too light to use on anything other than a pioneer-era machine,
but heavier denier might suffice. Here are the down-sides: this fabric was 3
times the price of similar dacron, its not doped, so it absolutely can't get
wet, it does not shrink unless you don't want it to, its very porious, it has a
lower strength and lower abraision tollerance than dacron. Cheaper cotton
muslin fabric from a fabric store was tried by another builder with very poor
results. The tension in the threads was uneven, and when his wings got wet,
they shrank into parallelograms.

You might be able to negate some of these problems by doping the fabric. But I
would only use cotton if the situation dictated it, such as in an historic
restoration.

Harry Frey
Wright Brothers Enterprises
http:\\hometown.aol.com\wright1902glider\airshow.h tml