Drafting Paper
Silk-paper -like translucent drafting paper that wrinkles when wetted. It is primarily suitable for pencils and felt tip pens. Pencil marks can be corrected to some extent with an eraser.
Thick Draft Paper
Sandwich paper -like, thin translucent sheet of paper. Manufactured in different strengths, the surface may be slightly polished. Also this paper wrinkles upon wetting. Suitable for lead, and felt tipped pens, and with limitations for technical pens. Eraser used for lead tracks. Ink is difficult to erase without damage.
Cloth
Drafting linen was formerly used for technical drawings. It was durable and held up to handling, but it was difficult to use in modern whiteprints for reproduction.
Tracing Paper
Polished sandwich paper -like, translucent thick paper, which comes in different strengths. Wrinkles upon wetting. Suitable for both graphite pencils and technical pens. An eraser or sharp scraper tool is used for corrections.
Plastic
Translucent plastic film, which is usually of gray or a light khaki shade. Common types are 0.05, 0.07 and 0.10 mm thick. These films are also used in photocopying. The most commonly used materials are polyesters, and sometimes also PVC or polycarbonate. In drawing, plastic's specific advantages over translucent paper are higher mechanical strength and the dimensional accuracy; plastic doesn't, unlike paper, shrink or stretch with air humidity. Plastic is also as a surface completely flat, while the surface of paper is relatively rough. The plastic is suitable for both lead and drawing pens. However, the surface tends to wear the pen tips, which has to be made of hard-metal alloy. Ordinary ink doesn't get absorbed into the plastic at all, so the lines can be easily removed with an eraser. Photocopier tracks can be removed by scraping.
Inks
Drawing inks can be divided into two groups: India ink and polymer inks. India ink is used on paper and drafting film plastics. The most commonly used India ink is a colloidal mixture of water and carbon black.
Dry Transfer
Dry transfer decals can speed the production of repetitive drawing elements such as borders, title blocks, line types, shading, and symbols. They were frequently used in production of schematic drawings, maps, and printed circuit board artwork, as examples. Dry transfer lettering such as Letraset was used especially in lettering larger size document annotations, or when consistency of lettering was especially required.