Need pricing help on 24" to 48" tall letters in Paint Mask

[khpelham 2]

I posted part of this question over on the stencil board yesterday, but now my question is mainly regarding pricing, so I'm posting it here.

We need to cut stencil letters somewhere between 22" and 46" tall (customer hasn't decided yet on size), overall length of will probably be 40'.  It is a sign for a bowling alley, and they want their name running down the side walls of the lanes, and in three places outside, for a total of 7 applications.  The look they want can be found here http://murreybowling.com/Murrey_Bowling/Bowling_alley_side_wall_graphics.html scroll down to see the Empire Bowl picture.  This company's work is digitally printed on 4'x8' boards.  The customer wants us to paint a similar logo on their wall. 

The customer may also want an outline around the letters in a different color (if they can afford it).  The sign will be going on freshly painted cement block walls, so the surface is uneven because of the grout between cement blocks (hence no option to use vinyl lettering).  We figure that it will be pretty easy to keep the sign straight, since we will be following a line along the cement block.  We figure we will have to cut the thing up into several pieces to be able to handle it.  Obviously, there is much more work is involved if they want us to go beyond our 24" capability and we have to piece it together.  I'm thinking that I'd use 30" wide Oracal 810 spray mask to cut 24" letters to allow for a top and bottom margin to hold the stencil together. 

We have a Copam 2500 which will cut 24" material.  We use Corel Draw and SignBlazer Elements.  We are planning to put on the paint mask and spray the lettering with an airless sprayer We are mainly painting contractors, but we got the Copam to do our trucks, job signs and hopefully be able to do jobs just like this one!

Has anyone worked with something this large before?    I need suggestions on:

1.  How to price this thing . . . for 24" letters and for letters larger than 24" which would require tiling the sign.

2.  I'm thinking we should double the price add if they want an outline around the letters in a second color, since it will be exactly twice the work. 

3.  Any suggestions on working with such a large application?

I know this is a lot of questions, but I tried to be thorough and give enough info.  We have only had our machine a few months, and only done work for ourselves.  This will be our first paying customer, and we don't have a clue what to charge for this!  Thank you in advance for your help!

Kim

[Truckntran 0]

This is one doozy of a job for a "first paying job". I can see all sorts of things going wrong here, but if you really want an adventure....

First of all applying paint with an airless sprayer to concrete walls masked off with paint mask... I highly doubt you will get an effective seal on the letter edges, and you will need to touch up a LOT. I would consider using the paint mask as a guide to lettering brushes and roll on the majority of the fill paint. Hopefully there is some of the original paint used on the wall around to use for touchup.

Second.. Many 24 inch machines will have registration problems on a graphic that large.. Prepare to do a lot of fudging and remasking the seams.

Third.. Pricing... You are competing with walldogs and conventional old fashioned sign painters here. If you just go to a website and price RTA vinyl  and add your paint costs you are probably going to be wayyyy too cheap. And by the time you are done....you may be really sorry you took the job.

I don't yet do stuff this large, so I cannot give you a real world price. If it were me, I would find a concrete block wall somewhere and do some experimenting before I took this on. Or I would make friends with a friendly old time signpainter and offer to give him the job in return for some on the job training for you guys.

By they way did you notice the website says their stuff costs only "thousands"?

[Paradox 0]

At 42" that's a projector and brush job if I've ever seen one. You could also also use some wicked airbrush paint from Createx and use a mini detail gun from harbor freight with some loose shields to fill that in. To finish it off you could stripe it with a brush.