Braille Engraving

[keith culm]

Hi All.

Well I may be to deep on this one but one my customers asked me if I can make signage with Braille on it. I told him I think it can be done, but to tell you the truth I have no clue. If any one knows if it can be done I could use all the help you can give.

Thanks

[Darren Null]

Easy.

1. Get Braille font
http://www.tsbvi.edu/Education/fonts.html

2. Remember to invert the burn- the dots should be raised lumps above the surface. Or, you could burn holes and stick little ball bearings in there.

If memory serves, there are a couple of slightly different Braille systems. Check that you have the right one.

EDIT: Researching a smidge, it's slightly more complicated than that. Braille produced in the UK is slightly different, but that shouldn't be your problem.

Grade 1 Braille is a straight 1-for-1 spell the word out (using the Braille font). You should get away with using this.
Grade 2 Braille has contractions; whereby some commonly used words have their own symbol, or where a single letter stands for a whole word. You shouldn't need this as you're doing signs...unless you're doing paragraphs (descriptive signs at a museum or art gallery, for example).
Grade 3 Braille has a shedload of contractions, & is almost like shorthand. Not used for publication, you will be relieved to know.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille
The Library of Congress's Instruction Manual for Braille Transcribing (All you need to know about grade 2...200 pages worth)
http://loc.gov/nls/bds/manual/

[Keith Outten]

Keith,

The American Disabilities Act which is enforced by a Code of Federal Regulations requires Grade II Braille here in the United States.

You can produce ADA signs with a laser engraver, the trick is to run a series of tests using varying speed and power settings to get the depth of engraving as close to 0.031" as possible. This will allow you to insert a 0.062" diameter acrylic braille ball in the hole and meet the CFR specification. Braille fonts should be engraved at 24 point, this will provide the right size and spacing required by the CFR.

It will take some work on your part learning the ins and outs of producing ADA signs but it is well worth your time. Use the search function here at The Creek, there are many threads here with valuable information that will help you get started.

.

[Scott Shepherd]

Just to add to it, you can use thin material, vector cut the holes, insert the balls from the back and stick it to the base material of the sign. I do something similiar on most of the braille I do.

I've also done a number of them as Keith mentioned. If I can be of any help, let me know.

[Darren Null]

Ah. I couldn't find the specs for ADA signs anywhere...I got the impression that it varied from state to state and even town to town.

Wasn't there a standard for the raised lettering on the signs, or will 24-point and upwards do it? Do you have to raise the symbols too?

None of this is my problem of course, living in Spain...but it's always useful to know. Plus, of course, having a tried and tested standard will take the guesswork out if any of us foreign types have to make braille signage.

There is disability legislation here in Spain, but it's all over the place. Bars being forced to put in a disabled toilet despite being at the top of 3 flights of stairs...that sort of thing.

[Joe Pelonio]

The ADA act is a federal government program, so it applies to all 50 states.

Here's a brief description from them:

http://www.access-board.gov/adaag/html/adaag.htm#4.30

[Mark Winlund]

At the risk of ruffling some feathers here, I would like to point out some realities.

1) Your ADA braille, in all likelihood, will never be read by a blind person. You could put anything in braille on a sign, and it will never, ever, be noticed. If there is a very knowledgeable inspector involved, the most that will be checked is the contrast and color, and is the lettering raised. You will find that most inspectors know less about this than you do.

2) The requirements for braille (ADA) signs are complex and extensive, and for the most part, not adhered to. I have been doing it since the government mandated it, many years ago. It was a "feel good" piece of legislation, that has nearly no benefit to anyone, and costs a fortune to implement. A lot of sign companies were salivating at the prospect of re-doing public and private buildings with all new signage.

3) The inserted ball method (glass or stainless) look the best, but are very expensive. This is best done with a rotary engraver, not a laser engraver. The balls are inserted with a tool that you can make that uses vacuum to pick them up one at a time. The method of engraving the background leaving "bumps" behind works, but looks ugly, and does not really meet ADA requirements because of tactile requirements. (Sharp edges on the bumps.)

4) Many large re-signage projects require the use of changeable inserts that slide into the sign. The sign with the room number and the braille room number stay on the wall, and a card is slipped into the sign with the occupant's name on it. This sign is now five layers... braille, raised lettering, top layer of sign with a window in it, adhesive spacer to allow the card to fit, and finally, the back layer that fastens to the wall. There are numerous problems to solve with each layer, and then you must mount the sign, which, in my state, requires a general contractors license and a bond. (true!)

All in all, lots of pits to fall in, and not really profitable compared to badges or awards.

There are companies that provide ADA signs ready to go, but are not cheap at all. (In the $80 to $120 range for each one.) You will quickly run into price resistance.

Before I retired, I owned a sign company that made thousands of these ADA signs. They were not our most profitable work by a long shot.

Mark

[Joe Pelonio]

At the risk of ruffling some feathers here, I would like to point out some realities.

1) Your ADA braille, in all likelihood, will never be read by a blind person.

2) The requirements for braille (ADA) signs are complex and extensive, and for the most part, not adhered to.

3) The inserted ball method (glass or stainless) look the best, but are very expensive.

4) Many large re-signage projects require the use of changeable inserts that slide into the sign.

All in all, lots of pits to fall in, and not really profitable compared to badges or awards.

There are companies that provide ADA signs ready to go, but are not cheap at all. (In the $80 to $120 range for each one.) You will quickly run into price resistance.

Mark

Mark,

I agree with you on all of the above. People will do ADA signs only when doing a remodel or new construction where it's in the specs and they expect it to be part of an inspection. The only ADA enforcement I have seen in all these years is when a complaint is filed, and on handicap parking space violations. Others may have had different experience.

I have sold ADA signs since about 1993, and for most of that time found your $80-120 price to be right (wholesale). It was hard to make a profit and I had a lot of people with sticker shock. Since then, stock signs available from catalogs have dropped to $15-20, while the custom ones remained about the same.

Since learning (with help from here) to do my own in house, I would not try to do a bulk order due to the specialized, time consuming detailed work to produce on a laser. Customers expect a discount for quantity and they each take just as long to do whether 1 or 100. I make them only in very small quantities, for regular customers, where I can charge $80+ and make a good profit without getting behind on my other work.

[Darren Null]

Rather than inserted balls, isn't there anybody selling bullet-shaped inserts for better stickage? Definite gap in the market there....

[Larry Bratton]

I agree with Mark.

The Raster Ball braille system is a patented system by Accent Signage. I have a license to use their system. Expensive when I got it, more so now. I use a Vision rotary engraving machine to do it. The software is Vision Pro (EngraveLab I think, by another name). The braille module translates text by simply clicking a button with the text selected.

I make signage for apartment developments. The leasing office is designated to be a public place, so has to comply with ADA. The signs in here are part of a larger package and just something that has to be done. To me their very labor intensive.
The laser, has made my life easier in that I can use it to apply the 1/32" thick applique for tactile letters and pictograms. I cover the whole plate, usually 8x8, kiss cut the letters or pictogram and weed the excess away.

I'm sure they are sign makers that do a lot of these and make good money on them. I can't say that they have ever been anything other than a pain to me. I doubt they are much of a benefit to anyone except the project owner. They keep him from being sued by people that make a practice out of seeking out non-compliant properties and taking them to task for monetary gain.

Good luck with them.

[Mike Null]

Darren

The specs do not permit variation. (but there's virtually no enforcement) I have forgone this business as I felt as some of the others do that it isn't worth the effort.

The people who have the patent on the rastering process will sell you their expensive license then compete with you. Their reputation is lacking the luster you'd expect.

[Darren Null]

No variation required- just drill hole with laser or drill and drop one of these in. Too little depth in your hole and you can hold it in pliers and dremel a bit off (and I'd like to see THAT done with a ball-bearing!), too much depth and you can make up the difference with glue...just line the red line up with the surface & you're good to go.

It's definitely not a raster BALL, & I expect you could get grillions of them knocked up in china for not very much money.

[Keith Outten]

Geez, once again I am on the opposite side of the trend I guess. I make a lot of ADA door signs both at CNU and for my own customers. My technique using Corian for the substrate rather than acrylic which is customary in my area is the reason why I can make these signs at $45.00 each in quantity and they are very profitable. They are also superior to the acrylic signs with edges routed with a classic roman ogee style and two keyholes on the back side for mounting. Laser engraving the front side text, graphics and braille takes an average of 6 minutes each. Material costs are less than $7.00 each which leaves me $38.00 each for labor, profit and overhead. I can produce about 15 to 20 per day when I work them in batches of at least a hundred.

Of course the dollars have to be adjusted for the East Coast versus West Coast pay scales and material costs but this is really good baseline work IMO. Making ADA door signs for commercial buildings under construction gives you an average of two years to get them done. Working multiple buildings over the time-line allows you to work ADA signs around other projects and keeps the shop work constant with less marketing effort.

.

[Kenneth Hertzog]

Keith

How is Aaron coming with the program rewrite?

ken

[Keith Outten]

Ken,

I haven't seem Aaron in two weeks so I don't know what the status of the new Braille interpreter is these days. I would suggest that you contact him and inquire about purchasing the one I am using which uses the free interpreter and Aaron's custom Corel Draw script which works flawlessly for me. Aaron had mentioned he might sell his script for $35.00 which I think is a bargain.

I told Aaron that if he wanted me to distribute his script from The Creek I could take the orders via PayPal and email the zip file with everything you need but he hasn't given me permission yet.

If it was me I would sell the script and then offer an upgrade when the new interpreter is finished. We could even setup a Braille Forum and post the files for download and give a custom access key to those who purchase the script. This would be great for tech support for Aaron's other software projects as well.

I just called his cell phone and left a message letting him know people are interested, I will let you know.

.

[Darren Null]

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[Mark Mullis]

I'm confused, some post say the raster ball system is a patented process, while others say they do it with a free bralle translator and balls bought from a catolog. Can someone clarify this .

[Darren Null]

From a quick peruse of the website and a quick read of a patent, I gather that the patent is a reinvented propelling pencil that allows you to insert the balls in the board quickly. There may be other patents, but I'm pretty sure that you can't patent sticking ball-bearings to a piece of acrylic manually.

[Scott Shepherd]

I agree with Mark and Larry. I do ADA signs, but it's a pain. Keith's got a good system down and it works well and looks great, but you have to have clients willing to change and I haven't found them yet. I have clients who own multiple buildings and they are building new ones. Show them a Corian sign and they say "That's nice" and then it's always followed with "Make it like the other signs we currently use".

I have yet to convert anyone to Corian, which does make the ADA process easier. I tried to take the right approach and make everything ADA, but when you walk into public buildings every day and you see how they aren't complying it makes you start to question the value of it all. When I walk into a new county owned office, or a State office (was in VDOT the other day), and you look around and see massive violations, it's tough to sell. If our own state agencies are ordering brand new signs and they aren't ADA, then what's the point of doing it 100% everywhere else?

In my opinion, it's a stupid system. Let's look at it from the perspective of a blind person walking into an office building. Let's assume for a moment, I'm legally blind.

I get into the building, walk into the lobby, I'm looking for "Barney Fife Security". I walk up to the lobby directory and it's not in braille. It's done on 3/8" backlite name strips which is a standard off the shelf system. I can't read the name, so I can't tell where they are located. So right now, I'm at a loss because I don't know what room they are in. Assuming I'm lucky, someone walks by and tells me they are located on the 4th floor in suite 450. I use braille to get me on the elevator and on the 4th floor.

That worked fine. Now I walk out the elevator, and I'm lost again. Which way is Suite 450? I have no idea. No braille directional signs telling me where every suite on that floor is. So what am I supposed to do? Walk around and feel for the signs and then check to see if one is right? What if the first sign I come to us Suite 401. Do I go right? Left? There's no way for me to know.

Now, if I'm standing directly in front of the suite, then I can read the braille and know I'm in the right spot. But, it was tough to get there and I couldn't have done it without help, which brings me to the point that if I had help, and most Blind people do, then you just walked me right to the place and no braille was used anyway.

Now, let's throw an emergency situation on that. I'm in Suite 450, the fire alarm rings. How do I get out? I have no idea. There are no braille signs telling me the fire evacuation route and even if there were such signs, how would I know where they are located so I can read them? So I'm trapped without someone helping me.

There are talking sign systems out there designed to handle those situations, but they are very expensive. If you truly wanted to help Blind people, I think it would be a lot more vocal directions instead of braille.

Just my opinion. I'll keep making them and I'll keep installing them, but I agree with a couple of the other folks, I think it's a waste of money.

[Larry Bratton]

Geez, once again I am on the opposite side of the trend I guess. I make a lot of ADA door signs both at CNU and for my own customers. My technique using Corian for the substrate rather than acrylic which is customary in my area is the reason why I can make these signs at $45.00 each in quantity and they are very profitable. They are also superior to the acrylic signs with edges routed with a classic roman ogee style and two keyholes on the back side for mounting. Laser engraving the front side text, graphics and braille takes an average of 6 minutes each. Material costs are less than $7.00 each which leaves me $38.00 each for labor, profit and overhead. I can produce about 15 to 20 per day when I work them in batches of at least a hundred.

Of course the dollars have to be adjusted for the East Coast versus West Coast pay scales and material costs but this is really good baseline work IMO. Making ADA door signs for commercial buildings under construction gives you an average of two years to get them done. Working multiple buildings over the time-line allows you to work ADA signs around other projects and keeps the shop work constant with less marketing effort.

.
Keith:
I believe your customers probably buy your beautiful Corian signs on their own merit. It happens that some of them are ADA compliant. Just my two cents worth.

[Larry Bratton]

Scott:
I think that the braille may also have a good purpose in some cases. IF a room is ajacent to a restroom it could possibly save a blind person from entering the wrong space. This could also be considered to be a life-safety thing in the case of mechanical rooms or electrical rooms or rooms with something hazardous. I realize this could be highly unlikely to happen, BUT, not impossible. It's the type of thing from which lawsuits can evolve. Property owners take every precaution they can against this kind thing.

[Keith Outten]

Scott, I agree that the ADA requirements are nothing more than a Government band aid that makes a feeble effort to accomplish a complex goal. Half a program isn't much better than half an automobile. It has been my observation that those who are responsible for many public buildings could care less about signs and even less about the safety of handicapped individuals. I'm sure it is all about the almighty dollar. Case in point, my daughter was attending a band camp at James Madison University last summer, there were zero signs in the dormitory she was assigned for lodging...not even the bathrooms or emergency exits had signs. The room numbers were written above the door with a black marker and they were so faded you could barely read them. We had to open the bathroom doors and look inside to see if they were womens or mens rooms.

Larry, I have had a great response from all my customers based on my use of Corian as the substrate. It should be noted that almost all of my work is new construction projects so I rarely have to be concerned with matching existing signs. I prefer new construction work because of the volume of the sign work.

People take signs for granted, they are important on many levels. If we didn't have wayfaring signs it would be almost impossible to find a particular area or specific room. Imagine being an EMT or Fireman trying to rescue someone and you had no visible means of locating them in a huge commercial building. Handicapped people, particularly the blind depend on well designed and responsibly placed signs to get familiar with new surroundings and to keep them oriented when they are traveling alone. At CNU our blind students arrive several days before the main student body, this gives them time to acclimate to the building layout, they often count steps between buildings to help them get acquainted with our campus.

None of us could imagine driving down the Interstate highway and not having signs to guide us in the right direction or to keep us from missing our exit. Ponder that thought for a moment and you can see how important ADA signs are to those who are without benefit of their eyesight.

.

[Scott Shepherd]

I agree with that Larry, my point isn't that braille is useless, but rather that it falls short in really addressing the needs of a blind person as a comprehensive plan. It's a good piece of the puzzle, but it's only one small piece, and without the other pieces, it's only filling a small part of their needs, in my opinion.

[Mark Winlund]

From a quick peruse of the website and a quick read of a patent, I gather that the patent is a reinvented propelling pencil that allows you to insert the balls in the board quickly. There may be other patents, but I'm pretty sure that you can't patent sticking ball-bearings to a piece of acrylic manually.

You can easily make up a pick-up tool that will place the balls one at a time. Basically it is a pencil shaped piece of brass with a hole down the middle. You apply a vacuum on one end, and stick the pointy end into a jar of balls. The hole, being slightly smaller than the ball, allows one and only one ball to stick to the tool. You then use the same tool to push the ball into the hole on the substrate. It is very fast. You can put the balls in as fast as you can move your hands. Trying to patent the idea of picking something up with a vacuum is silly.

Mark

[Larry Bratton]

Mark:
Your probably right. I believe that Accent Systems has a patent on the Raster Spheres and methodology. Here is a link to their license agreement..which..by the way now costs $1995. http://www.accentsignage.com/YouDoIt/LicenseAgree2005.pdf
Guess what, they are also YOUR competitor. I bought a license a long time ago when I first got a rotary engraver and have had it ever since. Since I own it, I use it. It does work and it works with my sofware. The cutters and balls work with my Vision setup, so I just use it and don't fight the fight with the laser. At least I am pretty sure that I am in compliance.

[Keith Outten]

Mark,

I have shared this before in previous posts, you can use a Torx security bit as a pickup and insertion tool. I forget the size of the Torx bit but anyone interested should be able to find my previous post. 2 bucks at your local hardware store :)

.

[Garry McKinney]

I found this thread quite informative. I shared it with my friend Ron Davidson, who is totally blind. There is a big differece between total and legal.

Although the ADA guidelines are and have been in place very little has been done. But the really insane part of the entire directive, is there is no standard for teaching Braile. According to Ron, there are 6 different styles being taught in the US today.

And most teaching centers teach tactile reading over Braile because of it. But at least it is a step.

Garry

[George Elston]

The one that really gets me is that the drive through ATM at my bank has a braile keyboard and instructions in braile, of course we have a fellow in town that makes his living suing companies that don't conform to the disabilities act. He even sued the company that sells wheelchairs because their handicapped parking spaces did not have the required access area surrounding the space (they were a couple of inches short). But I'm still waiting for the blind guy to drive up to the ATM.

[Larry Bratton]

The one that really gets me is that the drive through ATM at my bank has a braile keyboard and instructions in braile, of course we have a fellow in town that makes his living suing companies that don't conform to the disabilities act. He even sued the company that sells wheelchairs because their handicapped parking spaces did not have the required access area surrounding the space (they were a couple of inches short). But I'm still waiting for the blind guy to drive up to the ATM.
George:
EXACTLY!!! One of my developers told me that their are actually groups that go around looking for "marks". Some how, I don't think this was the original intent when this thing was passed in George H. Bush's administration. I don't disagree with the principle involved with it, but the implimentation sucks. Look around in a parking lot sometimes and see how many people in wheelchairs you see occupying all those designated spaces. I have actually seen people drive up, park in those spaces, reach down and hang the required handicapped permit on the mirror, get out and jog in the store...ridiculous.

[Dan Hintz]

The one that really gets me is that the drive through ATM at my bank has a braile keyboard and instructions in braile... But I'm still waiting for the blind guy to drive up to the ATM.
I originally made the same mistake in my thinking, but then I started having my own items manufactured and the truth dawned on me. It's not that banks expect blind people to hit the drive-throughs. The keypads used at the drive-through are used in a large number of items, so it's cheaper to manufacture one keypad with Braille and include the same keypad in many products, regardless of it actually being used.