Wooden Boat People

By McKenzieDriftBoat.com

Boat Name Lettering Fonts?

Hello WBP,

I am shopping for fonts. I would like to have professional letters made for my boat name. -The Zizumara. The original Grand Canyon Dories font is what I'm shooting for. Anyone know the name of that font? What size letters would Martin use?

Kelly

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Peak on February 19, 2010 at 10:42pm

sorry, no clue.
maybe you should try fontalk.com?
or channel him directly re:favorite font...
sorry, its friday night, drank beer...loose lips sink ships.

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Permalink Reply by Brad Dimock on February 19, 2010 at 11:47pm

I will ask Mary Williams. That's her boat. Those are vinyl letters made by a guy in Prescott. They last forever.

GCD's original font was a bit clunkier. Martin had bought a huge supply of plastic decal letters which we soaked in water and slithered into place, spraying clear lacquer over them to protect them. Of course they would get wet and slide off, or chip, or blow off on the trailer ride. We brought gold and black touch up paint on trips to fix this. How anal is that?

The guy in Prescott can even make them shrink proportionally toward the stern if you have diminishing stripe widths. To make color stripes look right you need to shrink them proportionally. If the stern is 60% the height of the bowpost, the stripes should shrink that much too. The one boat I saw that has the letters shrinking to match the stripes (very subtle--they only diminish about 1/4" from front to back) looks outstanding.

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Permalink Reply by tintnit on February 20, 2010 at 8:56am

i work at a graphics shop in beaverton we do stuff like that all the time along with full boat wraps
let me know if i can help you out

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Permalink Reply by Kelly Neu on February 20, 2010 at 9:09am

Thank you! I had no idea about the diminishing stripe.

Brad, thats hilarious that GCD brought touch up paint for the letters. Your stories crack me up. I heard Martin even used to do air drops for you guys. You're the cowboys of the GC.

Tintnit, Thanks for the offer. I'll be in AZ this spring so I might pick up the letters there. Sounds like you do cool stuff.

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Permalink Reply by Brad Dimock on February 22, 2010 at 10:34pm

Mary does not remember the font, but RJ Johnson, who has an original Briggs named Surprise Canyon, does. Baskerville Bold (Although it looks more like Century Schoolhouse to me.) He got his from A&B Sign Company in Prescott AZ, 520 445 6995, in 2003, for $97 for the pair (A long name--shorter names are cheaper). A&B has made all the GCD names for quite a while, so you could check with them on fonts, prices, etc. Attached is a photo of RJ's, upside down in the shop. His is the set that has the diminishing height, 1/4" from front to back, matching the taper of the boat. I know GCD experimented a bit with how thick to make the black border around the gold, and the ones that were too thick were gross looking, the ones that were too thin looked kind of emaciated. A&B knows what the more recent ones were, I am sure, and those all look great. Tintnit may be able to do the same thing for the same or better price--don't know.

Attachments:

SurpriseCanyon.jpg, 391 KB

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Permalink Reply by Kelly Neu on February 25, 2010 at 9:19pm

This is great. Thanks Brad. I've sent A&B an email and will be contacting them soon. Hope to have the paint stripe done in a few days.

Any hints on how to calculate the diminishment of the stripe? -my boat is upside down for painting.

I love the colors on those old boats. Your photo made my day.

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Permalink Reply by Brad Dimock on February 25, 2010 at 9:31pm

It is pretty easy if you have a calculator handy. Pick a spot on your boat where you want to define your stripe size--it doesn't matter where. Measure the distance from gunwale to chine. Measure the thickness of the stripe. Divide the stripe width by the gunwale-to-chine width for a percentage. Let's say the gunwale to chine distance is 31 inches at the bowpost and you want a 7 inch stripe. Divide 7 by 31. It comes to 22.58%. Call it 22.6%. Then measure the gunwale to chine width about a foot further down the boat. Say it's 28.5 inches. Multiply that by .226
(another way of saying 22.6%). Comes to 6.44 inches. About 6-7/16. Make a dot on your hull at that distance. Just keep doing that about every foot along the hull and you'll get your proportional diminishing line. Connect the dots with masking tape. The closer the dots, the easier it is to make a smooth line.