- Mayayana wrote:

Have you definitely ruled out stick-on letters?
That would cost more, but it might be a lot
easier.
Rub-down letters used to be very reasonably
priced, but I'm not sure if you can get them
anymore.

I am agreeing with you that outdoor-quality stick-on letters with some kind
of "varnish" (you suggested rubber cement) to protect them seems to be
another viable option.

In fact, that option negates all the flaws of spray painting, and yet,
still leverages all the Powerpoint and Rasterbator effort we put into this
project.

The only problem will be finding *cheap* outdoor vinyl letters that last.

A plan that seems better than spray painting, that fits your suggestion
might be:

1. Use PowerPoint (or anything) to get an idea of the sign content.
2. Use Rasturbator to create an accurate "floorplan" & "inventory".
3. Use stick-on self-adhesive vinyl letters according to that floorplan.

And then maybe spray paint over it with a clear varnish or lacquer to
protect the sign from the outdoor weather.

Overall, that process should work well if the right price can be had for
the vinyl letters where an advantage of steps 1 and 2 is that the size of
the vinyl letters is already confirmed, as is the total inventory of how
many of each specific letter is required.

The trick of course is finding good outdoor vinyl letters for a good price.

Most sites seem to make the prices hard to find.
[https://doityourselflettering.com/]

But this site seems to have prices listed by the letter:
[https://www.lettersunlimited.com/price.php]

The letters and borders needed (as measured off the Newt sign) a
A) 5/8" (outside border, with rounded corners)
B) 3/8" (inside line delimeter)
C) 7/8" (uppermost & lowermost tiny letters)
D) 2-7/8" (large letters)
E) 1-1/2" (small letters)

The 1.5" letters are 50 cents each, while they don't have the right size
for the 2-7/8" letters but we can assume it's about $0.65 each. They don't
have 5/8" letters, but the 1/2 inch letters are 40 cents each.

For price, we can figure on an average of about 50 cents per letter
(roughly), and a count of a few signs shows about 50 smallest letters ($20)
plus about 30 of the medium sized letters ($12) and about a dozen of the
large letters ($8) which is about $40 for the vinyl letters for one sign.

And that doesn't count the borders and lines.

So unless a far cheaper price (about half) is found, vinyl will be
prohibitive in terms of cost over spray paint.