I hope it does, I just did a couple for an existing job we did many years back. But I have heard that the route method is not preferred by the actual persons needing to read the sign. The routed dots are often not smooth and can be broken off. The recess is also a common complaint and when two lines are stacked it looks even less pleasing.
Most all the specs I get specify the beads or a rounded dome.
Extra work has come in just as the result of switching to this method. We now do the Raster as a method of choice. gets a lot of ohs and ahs. People with good sight like to touch them. We have 3-4 sign shops that have us doing samples and quotes very often. We get virtually all the jobs so doing a sample or giving them one of our extras, mistakes and ... is no big deal.

Fred,

Thanks for the info. As you suggest, the person "reading" the sign should be at the core of a signmakers decision, whether to use the route-out or true braille method.

Off-topic: The person you did the deep-route, into thick aluminum stock, LOVED the finished product. Thought I should mention that, since we rarely get the end-user's feedback, when doing wholesale work.

Very masterfully done.

David "The Stunt Engraver" Lavaneri
DGL Engraving
Port Hueneme, CA

The "Raster" method is not new. As other people in this thread have responded it involves using your computerized engraving system with a special cutter and a Braille font to drill holes in the sign substrate. Accent Signage offers the package, including the "Raster balls" in various colors and materials.

The Engravers Journal published an article on the topic in May '02, which showed both the manual and automatic method of applying the beads. More importantly, our March issue which is being mailed now, contains an updated article on the ADA, including discussion about the raised letters, Braille, and the new ADA regulations. The ADA regulations changed in 2004 and a number of people are not aware of the new ANSI standard.

As a matter of possible interest we published an article in October 04 discussing doing Braille signs using a laser engraving system. This is similar in concept to the "Raster" method, except you are using the laser to vector cut the Braille dot holes in a 1/32" substrate, then inserting the beads.

Enjoy!

Actually it was around longer than that. I was a rep in 1996 for the original inventor, he sold the patent to the company offering it now. He sold the glass or plastic balls and a modified fish tank air pump that was rewired to make it a vacumn pump to pick up and hold the bead while you pressed it into the hole. The actual drill assembly was sold by a company in Texas , I think it was ARA awards.

It's a great product if your doing ADA, but it's slow going.

You are absolute correct.
The original system was from DA Edgerton & Associates. He sold a
product license & kit. I purchased my license in January 1998. He use to run a special each January. If you inquired about the "Edgerton Method" (Brite Dotte) during the year and did not purchase one, he would offer it to you about half off the regualar price. I paid $575.00 for my license. I think it is about $1500.00 now. I do think he use to do the ARA shows, and at one time he had a machine that would drill the hole and insert the raster, see attached JPG file. Artisan Engraving Supply in Arlington, Texas sells the drills and bits. Wouldn't even think of doing braille signs without it.

T J Bird
Bird's Rubber Stamps

TJ,

Can you please resize that image? It's only about 830 kb over our suggested limit of 50 kb :-)

Thanks,

David Lavaneri
Forum Host/Moderator

tbird,

That's it. Dave only made a couple of his drill machines....they weren't that great. But using a computerized engraver the concept is fantastic.

Dave,

I had to delete the post of yours with the reduced image for TJ.

It locked me out of the forum twice.

I think the %20, (hex for a space), messed things up. I use WinXP Pro and IE 6.00.2900.

I was finally able to get back on by shutting down my DSL and restarting it.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

Harvey's Sub Page When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

John ,
Your query spawned so many responses that I was hesitant to add my comments; nevertheless...

First, I am a distributor for Accent.

Second, assuming you purchase the manual method (standard), you'll curse all of us for a few days till you "get the hang" of dropping in the balls. But it will be like riding a bike after a few days.

Third, Yes the automatic feeder (as Q1's Fred discussed) works on any of your Xenetechs.

Fourth: (David), the route out method is still very much compliant **if** the right cutter is used. That is, if the "bumps" are rounded and sized within specs.

Harvey,

I deleted and resized the 800+K image last night. After resizing I just kept the identification name it had during that process. I think you are very correct in that the %20 in the file name may have been the gremlin that caused our problem with the forum last night.

I have attached the resized image with a more forum-friendly name. Close your eyes and we'll see what happens. 8-)

It worked without a problem. Thanks.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

Harvey's Sub Page When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

Remember the older label makers that actually "pressed" the letter into the label, and caused a "Raised" effect? It was like a gun, and you spun the dial to the letter you wanted next, and simply squeezed the trigger?

I saw braile done exactly like that in a local hospital. Made by the press method, and must have been done on the exact same gun contraption, because the plastic tape was identical to the tape that goes in my letter gun. I looked for over a month for the gun used to make the braile tape that was on the signs throughout the hospital..... but never found one! I even tried to find out who made the signs.... but no luck!

??????? anyone seen one of these tape guns?

Justin

In my opinion, it takes too long to set up the auto-raster. It's great for big shops that can devote a machine to it. If you have to break it down and set it up multiple times, it's a pain.

I would purchase the kit with Accent's Raster Pen. The pen has the small braille dots loaded into it and puts them in ten times as fast as that little fish pump dispenser. The pen is half the price of the auto-raster.

Product pictures can be found on www.accentsignage.com.

Justin,

You may want to contact the company that makes the Dymo-Tape printers.

I did when I looked a couple years ago....and the people I got there, either didn't understand what meant... or didn't want to.

Do you think this idea of doing braile would be ADA compliant?

REWARDEM

At Tapecom we used to get that type of label from Lighthouse for the blind. we used them in quantities from 25-2500 at a time. They had to be done on an automatic machine.

(P.S. Do not take that type of tape, affix it to a cassette, apply shrinkwrap, then shrink the wrap. After the shrink process, you have flat tape again. [Now how would I know that?]

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

Harvey's Sub Page When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

I have one that we use to make plates for a blind bowling tournament. It was sold by Scott for their manual pantagraph about 15 years ago. The main problem that we had with it, was that the letter wheel would get out of sync with the embossing wheel. We would take the gun with us to the tournament and do a test strip which one of the participants would read and confirm that it was in sync. The gun allowed us to emboss the braille lettering on the trophies at the event.
We also used it to mark the top front of the door key cards for the hotel that the participants were staying at.

Mike Berger