Over the years I have had many different kites and colours and I have noticed that the lighter coloured kites tend to go milky and look fatigued, dark or black colours don't seem to show this milky "stress"

So the question is does the colour of the fabric change the strength ?

Not sure if this even relates to kite fabric or not but he is my 2c worth:

When it comes to plastics, light colours are not as UV stable as darker colours. If you tied a white and a black zip tie next to each other outside in the sun, the white one will degrade, become brittle and break long before the black one does. Same goes for light coloured plastic water proof boxes, nylon bushes etc.

Not saying this happens with kites, just my observations on other materials.

BTW, I heard kites with JEEP on them perform better than others of the same brand? Haven't tried this but might paint the words "Land Cruiser" on mine to test this theory!

Cheers

Saffer I feel violated.........you said you would never kiss and tell......I expected a few more you to have a crack its been a bit slow on the uptake probably spending to much time on the Ozone thread.........

The argument could be made that a dyed fabric would/could possibly have additional process that could change its longevity/strenght darker colours more prone to UV? So what colour does kite fabric actually start out white.....

You are quite right.
From experience in one of my past lives I learnt that anything to do with petroleum based materials will almost always involve carbon as an additive to 1) achieve the black colouring & 2) to provide UV stability. Carbon is the most efficient UV stabilizer of any UV chemical additive (by a long long shot). But it will always produce black product.
Any petroleum based 'plastic' used outdoors (or even in indirect light) has to have UV stabilisers added in the production process. A whole range of chemical options are available for different coloured products but black will always be carbon. White, on the other hand, is limited to very few options & the options which allow for white end product are the least effective stabilizers of all.

So YUP - black kites will stay crispy longer - coloured kites variable - white kites will always be the ones which will loose that crisp, new feel & undistorted panel performance before all others.

But what I like least about white kite panels is that they almost always end up with those rust coloured tea stains in no time at all. Its always an irregular pattern of staining & seems to happen no matter how well the kite is looked ???? Must be some chemical explanation for this somewhere ??? Ive always thought its probably the stabilizer itself that creates this tea stain ??? But really dont know?

Addikt said...
The very properties that make Dacron good sailcloth make it hard to dye. It's naturally nonporous, which is great while you're at sea, but is bad if you want it to soak up dye. You need to heat Dacron to affix dye, which damages the fibers and weakens/stretches your sail.

Dam so white kites are stronger....maybe they need to bring out a poo brown colour so you don't notice the streaks........

All true Addikt. To get coloured fabric it does involve intense heat & probably does degrade the new material. But Im pretty sure that Black isnt dyed. It becomes black with the addition of the carbon - for colour & UV.
And I doubt whether white fabric is untreated. May not be heat dyed ? but would probably have to bleached at least to achieve a clean white. Im sure the base untreated fabric would probably be more like your poo brown suggestion.
Also just remembered one of these fabric gurus telling me Silver is also a colour & UV stabiliser in one treatment. So silver panels may be next best to black?

And Addikt - time you got rid of the Jim Bob avatar - its disturbing.