Glass for portholes, engraved with your boat name!

[matnoo]

Right, i have a CNC machine at work and the boss says i can use it after hours..

I was thinking of custom machining/engraving plate acrylic to a drawing to fit portholes. Itd take a bit of setting up, advertising online/in magazines and stuff.

Wondering what you lot think? Would you want a porthole with your boat name or logo engraved in it? Do you recon its a decent buisness idea? Ive only been into boating about a month, so Ive gotta ask before i put money into it. Im reconing theyd go for about £50 (for the first one) and about £20 for each (identical) porthole after that.

Or should it be more/less? Couldnt go much cheaper than that


Mat

 

[Slow_boat]

It would have to be thick , marine grade acrylic. Portholes etc take quite a bashing from the sea, clumsy crews boots etc and have a lot of sunshine, therefore u.v., on them. Not to mention temperatures from well below freezing to tropical heat.

 

[savageseadog]

Admire your enterprise but suggest that engraving porlight or hatch plastice may weaken it too much. If you cut a sanblast vinyl mask and do a light blast that would in my opinion be the way to go.

 

[AlistairC]

washboards might be the way to go. nice thick tinted acrylic.

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

Yes, much nicer idea.... engraved portholes just don't do it for me..... but a nice engraved washboard would make a super Christmas present for the boat owner with everything....

Also, engraved place mats are an evergreen item....

 

[Aja]

I take it this would be decorative only.

QD Plastics in Dumbarton already have a line in this. Coasters with boatname/Sail Number etc in any font. Motifs on acrylic washboards (e.g. Beneteau, Sigma etc).

Donald

 

[Evadne]

Why acrylic? A washboard with contrasting plywood layers, engraved using a pointy routing tool would look quite attractive. And then there's teak nameboards....

 

[AlistairC]

I was just going along with the original spirit of the post, personally I'd rather have a nice bit of teak than anything plasticky. But if someone's got a space age boat, then maybe they might have the opposite view.

 

[Evadne]

No criticism meant, it's just that I thought the original poster might not have considered putting wood into his CNC machine, and that there might be a market for it.

 

[matnoo]

Acrylic can come up to 200mm thick! and is almost totally UV stable, Polycarb is the stuff they make riot shields out of and lasts forever, strength wouldnt be a problem on either, i guarantee that, engravings would be only to a tiny depth.

I dont machine wood, we machine plastics, and have a lot of clear acrylic knocking around from 2mm to 40mm which i can get for free, we have cutting tools for acrylic, were familliar with it, we have lots of it so dont have to buy it and ive made some portholes for myself already which were very easy!

Mat

 

[DaveS]

Late response I know, but: I'm definitely in the market for new washboards; 10mm acrylic would be fine, and a bit of milling would be needed to make a proper join between the upper and lower. (Plain clear finish would be fine. I had originally thought of semi-mirrored, but a pal has access to the sort of film that they put on bus windows with advertising on the outside but clear view out from inside. My idea was to use that with a tasteful logo printed on the outside.)

Anyway, are you interested in supplying washboards? If so, I currently have a tracing of them on hardboard, but that's a bit difficult to post so I could either draw them out again on paper which could be folded into an envelope or I could make up a fully dimentioned sketch - which would be better?