Spray paint for nylon fabric?

[newshound]

In our neck of the woods, local entrepreneurs have been known to steal the rugs off the backs of horses.

Prominent postcode markings might provide some deterrent as long as they are not easy to remove. It struck me that road / survey / site marking spray paint might do the job. Any suggestions? Horse rugs are often nylon, sometimes polyester, and may have silicone waterproofing. Also they get washed in industrial size washing machines every year. So we need something which won't wash out, otherwise it's a bit easy to defeat.

It needs to be a marking which stays visible from a distance to deter purchasers.

TIA

[Nightjar]

I would have thought that embroidery was the best way to put a permanent marking on fabric. There are quite a few compaines offering personalised embroidery services for clothes and you might find one of them that is willing to do a one-off on a horse blanket.

Colin Bignell

[newshound]

Nice thought, but you can't keep one horse, and they each need three or four rugs/blankets, if you include the fleeces.

But more seriously, a main winter turnout rug is a very substantial garment. Think of something like a (waxed) barbour jacket, outside one side of a sleeping bag. That's not to say it can't be sewn, just that clothes embroidery stuff wouldn't get near it. And you want letters 400 mm high so that they can be seen from a distance.

[Dave Liquorice]

I was thinking embroidary as well but not as in dainty logos on a T shirts, more like sail makers. Sails have numbers on 'em how are they fixed?

How waterproof are the top coats? The needle holes from embroidary would bugger that up or could the back be tape sealed like gortex coat seams?

I'm not sure that a spray paint on the surface/between the fibres would last very long. Probably better to look at dyeing or bleaching, though nylon isn't the easiest of things to dye. If they are silicone waterproofed I doubt either paint or dye will last.

[Tabby]

I'd look at vinyl dye

NT

[newshound]

Good idea, not come across that before, will give it a try

on Horse and Hound recommends dulux white emulsion, touched up every year.

[Nightjar]

So much the better. The embroiderers are more likely to be willing to do a short run than a one off.

I think you underestimate the capabilities of industrial embroidery machines. However, the people who do embroidery are also likely to have other fabric marking technologies, such as silk screening, inkjet printing or dye sumblimation.

Colin Bignell

[Owain]

Heat-seal labels - get a signwriter to cut out whole letters of heat- seal label on a vinyl cutter, and iron them on.

The only way to get them off is to scrape them off with a hot iron - but the glue soaks into the fabric leaving an outline.

Inserting some form of trackable tag in through a seam might also be an idea.

Owain

[newshound]

That's another idea, but have ordered some spray to try first. I guess they might be a pound each, so that's £12 per rug.

More appropriate for higher value items as proof of ownership. The thing about highly visible marks is that this will put off slightly scrupulous buyers, and since you can readily post "Rugs labelled XXXX have been stolen" on the net, nosy locals are likely to shop the villains if they do get put to use.

[Cicero]

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Fabric paints are actually quite common (try googling 'Fabric paint') but you would need to match a particular paint to a particular fabric.

An alternative would be to find a genuine canvas tarpaulin outlet (sail maker, lorry sheets, etc.) as they usually mark their sheets with owners' names or logos. They might be prepared to sell you something suitable.

If you get really stuck you could experiment with ordinary gloss paint and a stencil; my working trousers retain paint marks after many washes.

Cic.

[fred]

In article , Cicero writes

I think there might be some mileage in that.

For plastic gutters and drainpipes, the recommendation for painting is to use solvent based gloss which binds deeply to the surface. It may be that this will happen on nylon too.

[Andy Champ]

Glue. Carefully designed to be removable so you can sell the second-hand sail. They're vinyl I think.

The glue is just about visible on a white sail, I shouldn't think it would show on a horse blanket. Not after a couple of rolls anyway.

Andy