Responding to the needs of its local health care system, Incodema recently created a multiuse face shield design to be used by health care workers on the front lines of fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

As reported by LocalSYR.com, the shield can be sanitized multiple times because of the incorporation of steel in its design:

The team looked at the face shields on the market now and found many are only able to be used once, and Burbank says the 3D printed ones usually don’t hold up much beyond two or three sanitations because the plastic gets brittle.

From LocalSYR:

Incodema first sprung into action after getting a call from Cayuga Medical System, also based in Ithaca, a few weeks ago.

The healthcare provider was having a great deal of trouble, like many, finding face shields.

“So the Incodema team put their heads together here to see what we could do to assist with that. So they came up with a design using stainless steel that could be completely sanitized and sterilized,” says Incodema President Illa Burbank.

Incodema has made the open-source design directions for the resulting prototype available on its website for free so manufacturers can quickly put the face shields into production for their local health care workers. So far, the company has produced around 50 face shields for their local hospital system.

Incodema is a leading sheet metal prototype provider specializing in small complex parts and quick turnaround of products.

For more information on how COVID-19 is impacting the sheet metal industry, visit the coronavirus news coverage section on SNIPSmag.com.