Monaco insignia replacement

We love our 2009 Monaco Cayman and think the paint scheme is one of the prettiest out there. The only letdown which seems to be pretty common is the stickers that tell you the make and model.

The silver "MONACO" has gone only the "C" in CAYMAN is left. The rest is just the glue under the lettering

The originals are a chrome like raised lettering and as they age the glue weakens and letters start falling off. From all I have read the replacement letters are impossible to locate since Monaco went bankrupt just after ours was built.

I’ve been thinking for a while that I could probably get a vinyl sign shop to make new ones. I imagined they would just photo replicate them and they would magically appear!

We were recently in Vernal Utah and in conversation with the campground owner he mentioned he’d had some stickers made for his car locally. I set out to find the store.

First off I got out my tape measure and held it up alongside the original in two directions to get the sizing. I made sure the camera was square to the existing stickers to avoid getting any parallax errors.

Recording the width

And the Depth. Keep the camera square

Once at the store I explained what I needed and we set out to make replacements. First off they told me that they can not replicate the raised style lettering of the original. They are made using a molding technique that sign shops can’t duplicate. They couldn’t match exactly the chrome like finish either, they are limited to the pre-colored sheet vinyl they either have in stock or can order. Fortunately for me he had a silver color on the end of a roll in his scrap tray that was wide enough to do 2 stickers side by side if he was extremely careful lining the roll up in the cutting machine.

What I imagined to be the easy bit was actually what took the longest time and that was matching the fonts of the existing lettering. First he took my photograph and imported it into his software. Because it was a picture of the glue and a shiny set of letters the software had difficulty picking it out from he background. I played with the image on my phone, reducing it to black and white then increasing the contrast. 

Once it was in he was able to scale the image up to the full size of the original. Without me having the tape measure in the picture this would have been just guesswork. Next he scrolled thru literally HUNDREDS of different fonts to find one that matched most closely to the original. Apparently Monaco used unique fonts. After some trial and error and some stretching of the font we picked we got a pretty good match.  If you want it perfectly identical you are going to have to try somewhere else, but this is pretty darned close and the right size for the coach. That is as far as the MONACO part goes! The CAYMAN is a whole other font and it took a lot of searching around the internet to find something close followed by some stretching, compressing and some fancy work around the hole in the A’s to come up with an acceptable match.

After that the cutting of the stickers was relatively simple and I had 3 cut which is right for my coach. When he set the roll in the cuter the first time it was too close to the edge and several letters had the edge of the perforations in them. He gave me that one free and reset the roll for the last 2.

The new sticker under the backing paper

Back at the campground I got my stuff together. Fortunately I had bought some vinyl erasers when the “Invisible Bra” on my car discolored and drove me nuts trying to get it off again. I got mine from Harbor Freight I believe but you can get them thru Amazon or E-Bay. They aren't expensive.

This isn’t going to be a gloriously successful How To Do It post. I screwed up a couple of times so you may want to pay attention and avoid my mistakes.

I started on the left of the coach on the sticker under the drivers window. I carefully eased the last of the raised letters off using the tip of my pocket knife. Underneath was some thick serious glue/ body tape. It had stuck to the coach well but not to the back of the letters.

Lifting one of the old plastic letters with my pocket knife

I started with the vinyl eraser. Here’s my big error. I let the speed build up on the drill and pressed hard. The eraser smeared the glue around and I didn’t see that it had gone thru the paint in a couple of spots. My bad. LESSON 1 use a slow speed and don't press hard. I got most of the glue/tape off but there was still a lot smeared about. I used some artists paint thinner that I just happened to have and it did a good job removing the rest.

The vinyl eraser is good BUT USE GENTLY

I thought that would be that but when I looked there was a hard raised line around the edges of where the lettering had been. When I examined it it looked like a hardened lacquer. I could not budge it with the paint thinner. I tried the blade of my pocket knife trying very hard not to scratch the paint. My Bad. LESSON 2 after messing around for a while I tried the back of the blade and it worked better than the front, scraping off the lacquer and not scratching the paint underneath.

The shadows and the white where I ewent thru the paint!

The back of th pocket knife blade took off the hard outline and DIDN'T scratch the paint

I washed the surface down then when it was dry I used some alcohol wipes to remove any oils etc from the paint. I had set some masking tape up as guidelines for placing the new sticker. This worked well. Unfortunately I managed to get a wrinkle in the C of Cayman. I have the scrap sticker so I can go in later and replace that one on its own.

Tape to align the new sticker and the new sticker in place (With white where I went thru the paint!

I sat and contemplated what I’d done and I wasn’t happy with the burning of the paint with the eraser or the scratches I’d put in the paint. I went to the local auto pats store and bought some Goo Gone and some liquid rubbing compound. I used the rubbing compound and a little buffing wheel in my Dremel tool to polish out the scratches CAREFULLY around the lettering.

I tried a plastic scraper too but it was only good to remove the glue

I tried the one on the entrance door next using the eraser carefully followed by the Goo Gone. The eraser worked fine and didn’t damage the paint. The Goo Gone worked well but slowly, requiring multiple applications and lots of wiping to get the glue off. It didn’t remove the hard lacquer-like lines around the letters and I had to carefully work with the back of the knife blade to get that off. This time I didn’t scratch any paint !!

GOO GONE was OK but slow

Once I’d washed it and wiped the area with the alcohol wipes I decided to use some masking tape to hold the new sticker better in an attempt to prevent any wrinkles.

On the door I had to separate the MONACO from the CAYMAN due to the difference in the width.

I suddenly noticed that the CAYMAN part of the sticker was hanging over the edge of the door! It turns out the stickers for each side are different because to the limited width of the door! I hadn’t checked. My Bad. LESSON 3 check each location and take pictures with a tape measure in them. It would have been simple to adjust the spacing of the 2 lines.

I cut the MONACO from the CAYMAN so I could move the CAYMAN part over. Note that I had the whole set of lettering made on a single backing sheet so that I wouldn’t get one crooked. Guess what? I got the MONACO on straight but the CAYMAN was a little crooked. My Bad. Lesson 4 double check the alignment before you pull off the backing sheet.

No wrinkles, No hard outlines, no rubbing thru the paint BUT THE CAYMAN IS CROOKED

I also had a few bubbles under the new sticker but working them out with the edge of my Good Sam card BEFORE the clear cover was removed got rid of them. If you take the clear cover off you risk tearing the letter or discoloring it.

Good Sam cardgets out the bubbles BUT UNDER THE COVER FILM PLEASE!

So there it is. I spent 4 hours doing this and I still have the back one to do. That will have to wait for another time.

If you want to try this yourself the sign shop Jet Blast Designs 435 823 1890 of Vernal Utah (owner Aeryk Hurley) has saved the pattern and I’m sure he will gladly sell you some like mine. BEWARE of the one on the door being slightly different and is you separate them try and do a better job of keeping them straight than I did!