Classic nameboard
You don’t have to spend a fortune on a custom nameboard for your boat, says Zoran Glozinic... just make your own!
Using kitchen technology to create a boat nameboard
Carved wooden nameboards like we often see on classic wooden yachts and, less often, on GRP boats are beautiful and I love them. However I failed miserably when attempting to make a nameboard for the first cruiser I owned many years ago. After I managed to make some firewood out of expensive mahogany boards, I looked at alternatives.
My next idea was to order the nameboards from a professional carver, but the quotes confirmed my suspicion that my budget could not support even a three-letter boat name, let alone the name I planned to give to my yacht. I also looked into the possibility of buying letters cast in brass – they look great on varnished wooden board – but at a cost of around £29 a piece that was clearly not to be.
I didn’t want to paint the yacht name or use self-adhesive lettering so decided to cut the letters myself. I considered hardwood, which I rejected because of high maintenance, brass sheet metal, which I rejected because of the high cost, or some kind of plastic.
In the end I bought a piece of Starboard – a marine-grade HDPE polymer which resists saltwater, chemicals and UV damage. I mounted the letters cut out from Starboard using brass screws to the boards made from ½in thick teak. The nameboards looked good, didn’t require much time to maintain and were still in great shape years later when I sold the yacht.
Pound-store brainwave
For my next yacht – a Seafarer 24, Mikula – I wanted to spend even less money. So instead of buying Starboard (which, at the time of writing, costs C$85 (£49) for 2ft2 I bought two chopping boards from my local dollar-store. These large white ½in thick boards costs just C$6 £3.50) for the pair! They are mostly made from UHMW polyethylene and I had no idea how well they’d fare being exposed to UV, rain, heat and cold. However I was ready to spend some time cutting the letters out and I hoped my boards would look good at least for one season. When I sold Mikula eight years later, the nameboards were still in great shape! The letters showed no sign of deterioration and since then, each of my yachts had nameboards made in the same fashion.
The tools
The process is fairly simple. I start by selecting the font and size, and then after printing all the letters I glue them to thin cardboard. Next I cut them using a craft knife. I trace each cardboard template onto the kitchen cutting board using permanent marker. Based on my experience, the best tool to cut the letters out is an old-fashioned fret saw. It allows for very tight turns and that is very helpful for letters shorter than 4in. You could use a coping saw as well, or maybe even a jigsaw set to slow speed for bigger letters. Use some fine sandpaper to finish the edges nicely.
To mount the letters, drill and countersink the letters according to the size of screws used. I use No6 brass screws with a flat head – the length will depend on the thickness of letters and wooden board. The wooden board shape could be simple or fancy, according to your particular taste. The best wood to use is teak or mahogany – I like to use teak as it’s more hardwearing in my opinion, but it’s not so easy to come by.
‘I bought two chopping boards from the dollar store’
You might find some reclaimed teak online, otherwise iroko, oak or many other hardwoods could be used, in which case you shouldn’t need to pay more than £10-£15 for a piece of wood.
A note on transoms
Finish the wooden boards with oil or varnish, then mount the letters and install the nameboards. I have found that darker wood finish makes a great contrast with white letters, but even on washed-out teak boards the white letters are visible enough. For the transom nameboard you might need to make your letters a little skinnier.
For my latest yacht, Old Duck, I had to make the letters taller than normal because she has reverse transom. If I made the letters normal size, they’d look too short and too wide when looked at from another boat astern of us. The best way is to cut some different letters out of cardboard, tape them to the stern and have a look at it – before deciding on the final height-to-width ratio.
If you prefer, you can place round plastic washers as spacers between the letters and the wooden board on each screw, the idea being that by elevating the letters from the wooden surface you’re ensuring a quicker drying time.