In the Satin Weave, the weft floats or skips over as many as 12 warps before being woven in. The next pick repeats the float, but on a different set of warps. Compare the weft over the warp threads in the diagram below. You may see satin fabrics labelled as 5 or 8 harness satin weaves indicating the degree of float. The one here is a 5 harness - the weft floats over 4 warp threads. In Germany these weaves are called Atlas verbindung. These are probably the best fabrics to use for complex moulds but can appear to be tightly woven and therefore difficult to wet out with resin. Since the threads have less crimping than plain and twill, satins make for the strongest use of the fibres.

Natural fibers or cut lengths from filaments. The staple length of natural fibers varies from less than 1 inch as with some cotton fibers to several feet for some hard fibers. Man-made staple fibers are cut to a definite length, from 8 inches down to about 1.5 inches (occasionally down to 1 inch), so that they can be processed on cotton, woolen, or worsted yarn spinnning systems. The term staple (fiber) is used in the textile industry to distinguish natural or cut length man-made fibers from filament.