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SANDRINGHAM LIONS CLUB
Sandringham, Victoria, Australia
Chartered 27th September, 1966
Reg No A9858W ABN 96 981 793 934
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Braille Paper Project
This is one of the longest running projects for Sandy Lions.
It began in 1990 and will be completed in mid 2006.
The project consists of converting reject photographic paper to Braille Paper for use in Third World Countries.
Sadly, the closure of the Kodak factory in Melbourne meant the end of the supply of raw materials.
This has been very much Ron Smith's Project, and he he deserves a high degree of recognition for all his work.
The Process
Stage 1
The rolls of photographic paper had to be picked up from Kodak and brought to the Scout Hall in Sandringham. How Ron's station waggon survived is beyond all of is, for those rolls of paper are not light! |  |
 | Stage 2
The roll had to be moved to a convenient location. A line was marked down the middle, length-wise, and then the circular saw was used to cut into the roll.
If you look carefully, you can just see the "paper-dust" being ejected from the saw. What a mess it made! |
Completing the cut.
Here you can see the layers of paper lying flat on the floor.
After each cut was completed, the paper on either side of the cut was pulled away from the cut and laid flat so it was out of the way of the next cut. |  |
 | Stage 3
With the cardboard cone removed, we now had a truncated pyramid of paper, and it was now time to cut it into 14 inch wide sheets. |
Careful measurement and cutting, as you will see, gained the most yield from the sheets.
You can see the sheets are wider as we get lower, so it does not pay to cut too deeply, for we will get more sheets in width down lower. |  |
 | Here we are nearly to the bottom of the pile, where we can get 4 cuts wide. Ron and Fred are drawing the first line. |
| The lines are drawn now and Bob Standaolft can resume cuting. |  |
 | Here is Bob hacking through the second last cuts. On the last cuts, we supported the paper with wooden laths, so that we would not damage the floor. Note Bob is wearing earmuffs and a facemask. |
| With the strips of paper stacked on the (long-suffering) table, it was a tired Crew of Fred, Ron and David at the end of the day. |  |
Stage 4The last stage was to take all the strips of paper to Frankston, where Ivan Molloy used a powerful guillotine to cut the paper into the exact sizes required.
The paper was then shipped all over the world, courtesy of Australia Post.
What a fantastic achievement it has been, and one estimate of the value of the paper was in excess of $250,000.
Click here to see photos from the last cutting day at the Scout Hall.
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