Face Shields Los Angeles

I'm Amanda and I have a small 3D printing business (Brighton Cutters).  In March, I read about some 3D printing companies around the world who are using their 3D printers to create PPE for health care workers. Wanting to help, I reached out to some local Los Angeles area businesses who do laser cutting. I teamed up with Alberto ofAtomic Ant Creations , Teresa ofLaser Sharp and Janine of Laser Light Industries   . Together we are making face shields for health care workers in the Los Angeles area. We have also enlisted a number of local 3D printing enthusiasts in the Los Angeles area who are helping our effort by 3D printing face shield parts with their home and business 3D printers. Printers who have contributed to this effort include Ashley of Crumbs Cutters  , Holly of Holly Fox Design , Amish Desai, Merrick Campbell, and Mike Finn.  We are all volunteering our time and the use of our machines to this effort. If you would like to help by 3D printing parts with for us please contact [email redacted]

What your donations pay for:
Each shield costs approximately $8.00 to produce, not including time and labor. Breaking down the cost, the materials cost approximately $3.50 (this covers the cost of filament, clear plastic sheets, elastic, zip ties, and bags for packaging.) Our material costs have varied per batch and material costs have increased with a current shortage of plastic and filament supplies. In addition to material cost, Laser Sharp has calculated the cost of machine maintenance and electricity required to cut the plastic for each shield as approximately $4.50 per shield. Cutting these shields causes a lot of wear and tear on the machines so covering this cost helps keep the machines running. 

So far we have purchased enough materials to produce up to 850 face shields and have already distributed 550 of them. Our current goal of $8075 covers the production costs for these 850 shields. We currently have requests for more shields than we can produce with these materials so in order to make more than 850, we will need to raise funds above our goal. 

So far we have distributed face shields to health care workers at the following facilities: Adventist Health Glendale, Providence St. Josephs, Cedars-Sinai, Huntington, Kaiser (Los Angeles, Sunset, Orange County, West Hills, West LA and East Los Angeles, Fontana and Ontario), Metro State Hospital, City of Hope, California Hospital, Barlow Respiratory Hospital, Studio City Urgent Care, MLK Hospital, Antelope Valley Hospital and more. 

We are taking requests for face shields from individual health care workers who work directly with Covid-19 patients (including nurses, doctors and respiratory therapists,) for themselves and their teams. If you know a health care worker in the Los Angeles area who is working in a facility with Covid patients who needs a face shield please email [email redacted] with the name of your facility, your position, and the number of shields requested. We are not currently making shields for other front line workers. There is currently a shortage of materials and each shields takes a lot of time to produce so we are prioritizing those who are at the most risk for exposure. 

Thank you for helping us make face shields for Los Angeles health care workers!

Face shield design by Prusa and Maker Nexus.