The lion kingdom previously painted its LED panels with a 20 year old 8 oz can of glossy white rustoleum.  When that dried out, spray paint seemed like a good idea until it completely dissolved the foam core.  This warped, dissolved panel was basically a loss, but there was still an attempt to salvage it & the paint by hot gluing all the voids left by the dissolved foam & spray painting on the hot glue.  The smallest can of paint is now $22 & 32oz.  The 8oz cans are no more.  The spray paint was $7.

The spray paint couldn't achieve a thick reflective coating without going outside, suiting up, & getting paint everywhere many times.  Any exposed edges of foam were completely dissolved.  This board already wasn't very appealing in its warped state.  Now with the foam dissolved, it wasn't worth proceeding with soldering 42 LEDs.

Thus began a new LED panel with whiteout instead of paint.

What has become the standard display size has lines in freedom units because those give the roundest numbers.  The vertical lines are drawn 1/4" thick even though the foam board is really 3/16" because it's easier to measure.  The digits are 8 3/4" tall, 6 3/8" wide.  The segments are 1 1/2" wide.

Vertical 1/2" tall pieces go in 1st, with convex side facing down so it causes the panel to bend concave instead of its natural tendency to bend convex.  All 1/2" pieces are cut with scissors in the short direction & xactos in the long direction.  The longest piece which can be hot glued in 1 go is 8 3/4"

Then the horizontal pieces are cut to the remaneing size & glued in.

Sadly, whiteout was a subjective failure, cracking the moment it was applied.  Oil based rustoleum never had any problems.  The total cost so far has eclipsed the cost of a roll of white PLA & it looks worse than PLA.  A roll of PLA would definitely be cheaper than a  32oz can of rustoleum.