Introduction: Making a Covid-19 Face Shield

Objective

Simple instructions to allow you to quickly and cheaply make a face shield.

Adapt, modify and make it better but keep it low cost and one should be able to to make it only from items found in the “house”.

Introduction

I am sure many have already thought about this and even have made some visors. With the spread of Covid-19 set to get worse in the next few weeks I was struggling to find a way I could help. I had done all the neighbourly things. During the day I had seen carers in the care home near me go in with builders googles which they then used again and again. I got thinking of how to make cheap googles but ……..

I was listening to the 6pm news when a representative from WHO said that if the virus spreads out of control in the developing world that it could mutate and come back even worse where it kills on a greater scale and we have no cure for. He also said the developing world did not have the equipment to deal with the current Pandemic.

While lying in the bath I had a thought, why do I not make a Covid-19 visor out of household items that could easily be found in any country and be so cheap that it be considered a single use item. Once used it can be incinerated thus stopping the spread of the virus.

I made a few prototypes with various materials and have ended up with very simple design that seems to work. Note it is not a replacement for a medical face shield just something to use if you have nothing else. People could make millions of these very quickly and very cheaply.

Supplies

  • A4 plastic sheet I used a laminating pouch, but any clear plastic can be used and maybe you choose larger than A4.
  • Elastic strip or similar to tie the shield to the head.

Step 1: Tools Required

  • Hole punch or any other tool capably of making holes in the plastic.
  • Scissors to cut elastic.

Step 2: Prepare Shield

Take the plastic and on the long edge punch some holes with a hole punch at the top to thread the elastic through. Best not to put them right on the edge but space them in from the edge a little.

Step 3: Add Head Strap

Thread the elastic through the holes and tie it so it makes a loop.

Step 4: Modifications Part 1

If you do not have a full sheet of clear plastic, no problem let’s make a shield with a small clear section added. Cut the hole and add a small plastic window which you attach to outside with some tape making sure to tape shut the edges. I say outside because anything spraying on it will run off the outside of the shield and not drip down the inside onto the person. All the rest remains the same as above.

Step 5: Modifications Part 2

These may look a little scary to children so you could use colourful patterns on you shield maybe even cartoon characters.

Step 6: The Final Modelling

Here we see the result. Many modifications could be done but here we have an example of a quick, simple and cheap mask. It does not replace medical masks but if you have no medical masks then using something like this is better than using nothing at all.