Protective printing

While first responders have been busy protecting Jay County during the coronavirus pandemic, the community is stepping up to make sure those on the front lines of the crisis are protected.

Masks and face shields are some of the most sought after pieces of personal protective equipment in the world to combat the spread of the disease. Consequently, face protection can be hard to find or produce.

Utilizing local 3D printers and materials donated from local businesses, John Jay Center for Learning’s Rusty Inman and Kyle Love, a teacher at Jay County High School, have begun creating face shields and donating them to local first responders, IU Health Jay and nursing facilities.

“This is the right thing to do, so we’re going to do the right thing,” said Inman, who so far has helped create and donate nearly 100 face shields.

The coronavirus is spread by the virus’ exposure to the mouth, nose or eyes, so anything to cover the face goes a long way in helping to stop the spread.

“That was a huge help,” said Sheri Arbuckle, who works at the Miller’s Mary Manor rehabilitation center in Dunkirk, which received a few face shields.

Arbuckle said the center didn’t have any face shields prior to Inman and Love’s donation. If somebody at the center was in isolation because of exposure to the virus, the shields would have to be constantly used, she said.

Inman was on his way this morning to deliver more shields to Miller’s Merry Manor as well as CrownPointe Communities assisted living community and Persimmon Ridge Rehabilitation Centre in Portland.

Anycubic, a Shenzhen, China, based company, partnered with German engineer Erik Plischke to develop the design for the 3D printed piece. The company then made the files available for free to anyone with 3D printing capabilities.

“Due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, we are happy to share with you our ANYCUBIC Face-Shield,” the company said on its website. “We’ve decided to develop a face shield that can be easily printed by any 3D printer owner. It was also important to us that all the individual parts required for the shield can be found on the internet.”



The face shields are created from three main parts. The clear face guard is a plastic sheet donated by Progressive Office Products of Portland. Holes are punched in the plastic to attach it to the 3D printed visors that Love and Inman are producing. A rubber band strung through a piece of tubing from Portland’s Hometown Hardware is attached to the 3D printed piece as well.

“Rusty and I have been going non-stop for about a week now,” said Love, who has been using the 3D printers at Jay County High School while Inman uses the printers at the John Jay Center for Learning.

Each face shield takes about two hours to make, with Love and Inman producing around 16 to 24 a day.

Face shields have also been donated to police and fire departments in Dunkirk, Redkey and Portland.

Though they haven’t had to be used yet, Portland Fire Chief Mike Weitzel said the face shields would be needed if the county’s fire departments had to assist anyone who had been exposed to coronavirus.

Jay County has seven confirmed cases of COVID-19 according to the latest numbers from Indiana Department of Health.