Whitewater Rafting Companies: Need to Identify New Boats?

A stack of boats ready for whitewater adventures with MexicoVerde.com.

If you run a rafting company on the South Fork of the American River, chances are good that I helped letter your boats! During the many years I made stencils for Rapid Repair and Hyside Inflatables, I cut stencils for many whitewater companies in Coloma and Lotus, plus boats from Alaska to Mexico, and even a few in South America.

The 2009 season is getting underway in California and here I am, ready to help with getting your boats identified for the river. [Need boat repair? Call Kelly at EddylineRaftRepair.com in Mt. Shasta: 530-957-0310] Me? I do stencils, from standard block letters to corporate logos and special designs like the symbols shown here, used on the MexicoVerde boats, I can develop your art and deliver stencils that help you do your paint job with speed and accuracy. Call me at 530-622-6567 and we can discuss your situation.

What Do Stencils Cost?

About $10 per lineal foot of material, but note that this is almost always for a pair of stencils (see Salta example, below). If you have a reason to need lettering or logos more than 6" tall, that will take away the opportunity to stack the art two-up on 15" material and still allow for the margins you need! If you have more than a few boats, the price will drop a little, but the material costs and my production time don't change much with quantity so I haven't got much room to move. I won't use cheaper materials because the stencils won't stick to the boat nearly as well and your paint job suffers!

IMPORTANT: I have just done some searching for companies offering to sell vinyl directly from their sites. I learned two important things: 1) my pricing is more than fair, and 2) I am using a real brain to set up lettering, allowing me to adjust letter spacing and make small tweaks that make the lettering look better. Relative to the cost of high-quality materials (even for a stencil, you don't want to go cheap; the stencils won't adhere to the boat for the time required to do the paint job correctly!) In short, I work with you to give you custom lettering that saves you (or your crew) time at the job and still gives you sharp, clean lettering.

Here is the information sheet that explains how to do your lettering: Stencil Info (32k PDF)

At this moment I can help you with everything you'll need to get the job done, except for one important item: The paint! The good news is that HysideCall 1-800-868-5987
Click for the website. will sell you Gacoflex, and the Man of RubberCall 1-800-437-9224
Click for the website. will sell you FlexTuff.

Learn about GacoFlex... | Learn about Flextuff...

Here Are Things I Can Do for Your Whitewater Business:

Basic Lettering Stencils

The best way to get the biggest lettering for the lowest price is to stick to the tried-and-true 6", semi-bold condensed letter style that has been the standard for us. It fits two copies of the name stacked onto the 15" width of the material and wastes nothing. There is no set-up charge.

Custom Lettering Stencils

If you want a special style for your company image, say the word. You should be able to send me an EPS or TIF file. An EPS file is ready to work with, a TIF file can (usually) be converted to a clean graphic with smooth curving letter form outlines. There may not be a set-up charge if I can simply resize your graphic. Of course you may need me to create a new design from your idea, and I can do that too. There will be an extra charge, but it won't be that big a deal. Let’s talk.

Design for Your Projects

If you don’t have anyone already doing your artwork, call on me! I'm not just a vinyl guy, I actually have a degree in Graphic Design; I do sign work, catalogs, web sites, and everything else graphic. If you have an idea, I can help you with bringing it to fruition. The shark shown here was a request from a guy with a boat who also wanted a shark design he could paint on his office wall.

Custom Digital Printing for Vehicles

Add color to your company vehicles with eye-catching photos of your adventures! This is a photo that I modified to look painterly, both for the nice look and also to cloud any real identities of people. More expensive than just lettering, but it is an attractive addition to the rolling billboard that your van becomes when it's off to pick up your clients.

Banners for Your Events

If you have special events, or maybe a really big group booked for a weekend and you want to make them feel really special, consider a nice (basic) banner to put up in the camp. The banner shown is an actual banner made for a company in Japan, but I can set you up with the lettering and materials to make a nice one-color banner (it’s easy! Of course I can also complete the banner for you for labor charges) that you can use for the event, then give it to the group as a souvenir!

Vinyl Graphics for Other Uses...

Camp signs are a common need; I can cut your messages and provide you with aluminum blanks to let you make your own, if that appeals to you. I can even cut reflectorized materials if you want signs that show up for guests wandering with flashlights, looking for the restrooms! And don't overlook that I can also cut lettering for your camp vehicles.

Products Other than Vinyl

You probably use a variety of signs around your camp, similar to those I have made for Mariah and WhitewaterConnection, among others. You can handle this if you choose.. Of course you hire people with skills and talents beyond guiding raft trips, so why not put them to other tasks, like assembling a few signs to organize your camp? It's even possible the have them identify your transportation vehicles! With a patient approach (plus a tape measure and a good eye), they can do what most people pay me to do. You will save money.

Available Materials include: aluminum blanks in standard sizes (12x18 and 18x24 are most common), magnetic rubber (12x24), 3" short-nap rollers (terrific for use with boat paints), masking tape, squeegees, white banner material (24" by ?) along with banner-ups (cheap corner-mounted brackets).

Help Me Help You...

I am happy to help keep your costs under control. If you have had artwork done for other purposes (a printed brochure, a t-shirt, or even your web site) you should be able to ask that person to give you an EPSAn EPS file works, but you MUST convert any lettering to outlines before saving as EPS.Otherwise the letters simply don't come though!, or at least a TIF file of your artwork. Truth is, I’d prefer an Adobe Illustrator file. Yes, it is possible to work from a JPG (a web graphic) but the results may not be very sharp. JPG graphics are low resolution (72 ppi) while EPS and TIF files are 300. The results from a JPG could need plenty of work to straighten up the art created from a tracing program. Of course it’s possible you won't care if there are little oddities. Look at the bigger image of the wonky curves in the Hydra logo. They won’t be seen by many, if any.

The original JPG graphic...

The resulting outline

I can recreate most any artwork, sometimes having to track down a font for an unusual letter style; if you use an unusual font, create outlined art, send it to me and save money.

Obviously you should call me with any questions: 530-622-6567. You can e-mail me; be sure to put "Raft Lettering Question" in the title so I don't miss seeing it among the ads for drugs and mortgages!

Thanks,