[Ohio-talk] perma braille paper

[Barb Fohl]

I called the American Printinghouse and got more information on perma braille paper, the plastic sheets that they sell.  It comes in four sizes; 3 by 5, $6; 4 by 6, $6; 8-1/2 by 11, $12; 11-1/2 by 11, $16.  All sizes come in packages of 50.  All sizes come unpunched, but you can get size 4 by 6 punched with two holes to fit the braille datebook.

You can wipe the sheets off with a damp cloth if you spill something on them, and the dots are very permanent--so permanent that it's next to impossible to erase dots.  Personally, I don't like it for slate writing.  It feels like you're punching into glass; you can't feel or hear the dots going into the page, and you can't find your place in the middle of a line by using your stylus to feel whether you've already brailled in a cell.  I did use a slate and stylus on one of the sheets, however, and I did get good braille--it just didn't feel as though I were getting any dots until I turned the page over.