Face Shield Design and Production - Sask Shield V8
Gary and I designed three different face shields for the Saskatchewan Health Authority.
Our clear shields are designed to be inter-compatible with the popular 3D printed Prusa Shield headband, while our laser cut headband can be produced 12 times faster and can flat pack for transport.
Design Downloads
Our headband design includes an integrated ear saver which fully removes the strain of a medical mask from the ears.
In place of regular spandex or nylon clothing elastic, our design can also use hair ties, elastic bands, or string.
Our headband offers over six inches of adjustment, and is compatible with hard hat band liners for improved comfort.
The material costs listed below include nylon hair elastics, a laser cut ear saver, the face shield, and nylon zip ties.
Face Shield Designs
Full Shield
Material Cost: $3.31 CAD
US Suppliers: $1.24 USD
The full shield provides protection from above the hairline to below the chin.
Design File
To Scale PDF
Vector File
Lower Shield
Material Cost: $3.02
US Suppliers: $1.16 USD
The lower shield provides protection from the headband to below the chin.
Design File
To Scale PDF
Vector File
Half Shield
Material Cost: $2.47
US Suppliers: $0.96 USD
The half shield provides protection from the headband to below the mouth.
Design File
To Scale PDF
Vector File
Head Band
Material Cost: Included In previous
The same headband is used for all three shield designs
Design File
To Scale PDF
Vector File
Ear Savers
Material Cost: Included In previous
Both 3D printed and lasercut designs are avalible at the link below
Face Shield Production
If you make any of our face shield designs, please let us know how many.
Also please let us know any ideas for improvements on our design.
Use the form to the right (below on mobile) or email [email protected]
Have any photos of your Sask Shield production, distribution, or use you would like to share? Email them to [email protected]
Material Selection
We used 40 thou opaque Cast PS plastic for our head bands and ear savers, and 40 thou clear PET plastic for our face shields.
The laser cutter at my alma mater was only 32″ by 20″, so we used the shear at the Saskatchewan Aviation Museum to cut our 4×8′ sheets of PS and PET plastic down to a workable size.
Both the cast PS and PET are safe to clean with alcohol, peroxide, and bleach based cleansers.
The cast PS plastic is also machine washable.
Laser Cutting, Hot Knifing, or CNC Routering
We produced our prototypes using the Usask Engineering Department’s Laser Cutter, but our design can also be used to make templates for hot knifing, or be directly produced on a CNC router or CNC drag knife.
We set the inner holes and elastic hooks to be cut first, to ensure that the parts remained stationary. The large straight or curved sections were cut last, and freed the parts. For CNC routing tabs or additional hold downs may need to be added.
Heat forming (Optional)
We heat formed our shields around a seven inch diameter empty (depressurized) argon cylinder. We used two soft cloths prevent scratching or scuffing of the clear PET plastic. Make sure to remove the protective film and to evenly heat the PET plastic.
PET can be thermoformed at around 80 degrees Celsius. All that is required is a blow dryer (on high) or a heat gun (on medium or low).
I recommend heating the PET while holding it horizontally or when it is set over your mold, then watch for it to become supple enough to heat form. Make sure to heat the plastic evenly, otherwise it will bend at a specific, sharp point. We pressed our plastic into shape using a second towel, for insulation and to avoid scratches or scuffs.
Assembly
Once all of your pieces have been cut, they can be sanitized and flat packed for shipment. Or assembled for delivery.
The protective plastic should be removed from the face shield before assembly, then the longer section of the headband should be placed against the shield, Insert the tabs on the face shield into the slots on the longer section of the headband.
Next place the shorter section of the headband on top of the longer section and align the notches on the shorter section of the headband with the set on the longer section and the holes in the clear shield.
A zip tie can then be inserted from the clear shield side around the two pieces of the head band, and back through the shield. Make sure the ratchet is on the face shield side, as not to cause discomfort to the wearer.
Now bend the head band in order to align the notches on the other side of the headband. It may be easiest to insert the zip tie though the holes on the shield and notches on the longer band and loosely ratchet it, before bending.
Once both zip ties are tight, the excess can be trimmed and the shield is ready for use.
Tensioning
Our shield was designed around shortages of elastic material. Instead of relying on notched clothing elastic like many other designs, ours is made to be able to use hair ties, string, office elastics, or clothing elastics.
You may use whichever is most comfortable or readily available.
Our head band is designed with over six inches of adjustment to enable the use of variously sized elastics.
Very long elastics can be doubled over for use as well, and the shield can be used with or without the ear saver component.
Extras
Our head band is sized to allow hard hat liners or sweat bands to fit onto the inner band, or a cloth to be wrapped around the inner band to act as a cushion and prevent sweat from running into the eyes.