Building Grade 2 Braille

[Keith Outten]

Joe,

I have found a large number of ADA signs that were fabricated with grade 1 braille. Many are not taking the time to do their homework to get it right. I can't say I'm an expert but Scott and I have been using a Braille Interpreter program that will convert text to grade 2 braille and allow us to cut and paste into Corel, with a couple extra steps it works well and its inexpensive.

Grade 2 braille uses abbreviations for many common words and phrases. Notice the "en" in both men and women which is an abbreviation rather than the grade 1 braille which uses each of the individual letters.

Note that the two signs you posted are like my grade 2 braille interpretation except for the first dot (in the lower right place) which indicates a capital letter is next. Two of the lower dots in succession would indicate all caps follow. Your signs are the same without the capital letter designation. The capital letter is not required by law, it is considered to be good practice by some although many feel that braille should always be lower case which is probably the better option. I shouldn't have used the capital designator.

Tactile text is always all upper case using a sans serif font.

Make sure that when you select your font size that the spacing meets the ADA requirements. The distance between each dot horizontally and vertically is specified in the ADA specs and is critical.

.

[Scott Shepherd]

Here's an extra of a sign I've done recently. It's 1" thick overall, with elements varying in thickness from 1/2" to 1/8" thick, and it a 3D type sign. I didn't design it, so I had to stick with the way they had it. I'd guess that it's probably not technically ADA compliant, but when they picked this style sign (designed by a professional architectural firm) they didn't leave much room to lay things out properly.

Aside from all of that, here's the sign.

[Joe Pelonio]

Scott,

It looks good. I suspect that a good percentage of the ADA signs out there do not meet the guidelines 100%. On the other hand, not many are actually used by the blind. I just did some for a theater, and he told me he's never seen a blind person go to see a movie.

Here's another question. Does it matter if the braille dots are clear? I see most of the posted examples are, but in this last case, I inserted them prior to
spraying the clear non-glare acrylic on the back. That makes the dots sort of a lighter version of the background color.

[Scott Shepherd]

Hi Joe, I don't believe the dots color matters. I don't recall ever seeing that subject. The raised lettering is a visual/tacile aid, where as the dots are pure tactile, so I don't think it matters. The regulation specifies that it has to be directly under the text, so I'm sure anyone using it would be accustomed to touching under the raised letters.

If that's wrong, someone please correct me. I do also believe that the people who sell the RasterBall product sell it in white, clear, and one other color.

[Andy Rentsch]

After getting gouged pretty good on the last couple of custom braille sign orders, I've decided it's time to try these in-house. I've read through this entire thread and found many good tips. I have no problem creating the raised letters with our laser engraver using a rowmark applique on top of 1/16" acrylic, however, I have not had the same luck press-fitting the acrylic balls into the rastered holes. I have adjusted the depth and diameter of these holes to no avail. They just wont stay in.

What am I missing here?

[Joe Pelonio]

It's a matter of exact size for the hole. I have not been able to do it with rastoring except by using adhesive, but when I vector cut the holes they seem to fit nicely at 22 points which comes out to .054.

[Andy Rentsch]

It's a matter of exact size for the hole. I have not been able to do it with rastoring except by using adhesive, but when I vector cut the holes they seem to fit nicely at 22 points which comes out to .054.

Do you vector cut a hole all the way through the material? If so, how do you control the depth of the braille ball?