Anybody try this before. Would this work??
It's winter here and thinking about warmer days ahead.
Did some quick painting on my phone of my 2001 neil pryde sail decked out in Severne red. The graphics are very plain/non-existent on this sail. So this is my thought to give the sail a more modern look without spending $$$.
By spray painting one side of the sail with outdoor spray paint. Most of the colour should show through to the other side of the clear monofilm. My concern would be putting too much on and having dripping streaks of paint everywhere.

Ps sorry Neil Pryde, red is faster

Thoughts, recommendations or concerns?

Works fine, lasts over 10 days good, starts to peel then, but still ok after 35 days.

Solvents in paint could damage monofilm, and do not think it will stay on anyway, will rub off on anything it touches.

That's like putting lipstick on a sheep,
Wrong.

I think you should totally try spray painting sails. I think that before spray painting makes sense to do some research on what spray paints stick better. I wonder what paints they use on decals.. I would love to see how your sails comes out..

Terrible idea, apart from it probably damaging the sail it's going to flax off and look crap. Not to mention paint is actually very heavy.

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leto said..
I think you should totally try spray painting sails. I think that before spray painting makes sense to do some research on what spray paints stick better. I wonder what paints they use on decals.. I would love to see how your sails comes out..

I think decals are heat bonded, or chemically welded, plastic layers of different colors.

Straight skinny.
Bud spray painted his Loft Wave 5.2 and 5.8.
Full above the boom.
Lasted at least 3 years....30 days each? No problems, imperceptible weight gain. Sold 1 for 50 bucks, the 5.8 maybe giveaway.
He found both in the trash pile for free.

At a guess paint would add about 150grams. Which is quite a big percentage.

16 oz can, you might be lucky to get 6 oz to stick to the sail.
Drop it once, you add triple that.

There are sooooo many different types of spray paint in rattle cans. Most are rubbish. Most have very small area of coverage. Most will not key to plastics (with out an etch primer) and even if they do they will flake off due to a lack of plasticity (flexibility). Most are designed for quick and nasty coverups. Graffiti artists favour Krylon brand as it sticks to most things well with no primer. The better types are full of seriously nasty chemicals like tolluline xyline and tetahydrafuran. You dont want to breath them in or ingest them. Im betting that most of the paint you spray on your sail will end up in the water polluting the environment as micro particles. In my opinion not a great idea. Why not use a quality Vinyl and achieve a similar look?

Why? The sail is what it is!!!
If you like the sail and get the stoke using it leave it alone!!
Who cares what it looks like

For an older sail, that NP looks in great condition, why wreck it? Paint will peel off, add weight in all the wrong places and probably spoil the feeling. I have feeling it might end up looking like a dogs dinner too. Plus, you will need a lot of paint to cover 5.3m's.

I don't think painting a sail is going to work out good !!!

Thanks for everyone's advise. I think in this case the risk outways the reward, I have not really used rattle cans much and have a feeling it wouldn't come out the way I want. The sail is probably more valuable without spray paint.

The sail is in very good condition for 20 yo monofilm. Everyone talks about how brittle old monofilm is, but that is not the case with this sail with thick monofilm. Still close to as light as a lot of the newer sails these days.