A Kinross men’s shed is making hundreds of face masks for NHS staff

The Kinross and District Men’s Shed (KDMS) is on track to produce 800 protective plastic visors for frontline healthcare staff – with orders are coming in thick and fast.

The group decided to do its bit to help NHS workers protect themselves from coronavirus and have already made 300 of the masks, all from the safety of their own homes.

Now they’re fundraising so they can buy the materials and equipment needed to keep up with the huge demand from local services (with around 500 more having been ordered so far) – and they have raised nearly £2,500 in just a week.

Shedder Jim Forbes, 81, was determined to help medical workers keep safe and started working on the prototype at home in his own shed.

Now there are 15 people working on taking orders, 3D printing the parts, putting them together and delivering them to those who have requested the gear.

“Orders are coming in thick and fast from NHS workers, carers, testing hubs, postal workers and shop workers across Ayrshire, Perthshire, Fife, Forth Valley and Clackmannanshire,” chairman David Connor said. “Everything is done safely from our homes and we communicate through phone and video calls.

“We have been receiving photographs and video calls from the key workers when they receive their face shields and it makes everything that we are doing worthwhile.”

Quick-thinking Forbes said he came up with the design after researching face shields online and was content he’d found something “quick to produce, washable, reusable and light”.

The visors consist of just four parts: a top frame, an A4 sheet protector screen, bottom support and elastic to keep the shield on the face. And the ingenius design needs no tools to assemble except a pair of scissors to trim the face plate to size.

“We initially had our one Shed 3D printer and my machine but now Culture Perth & Kinross has dedicated their five printers bringing us up to seven solely dedicated to this task,” Forbes said. “A local lady in Powmill who has been printing hundreds of shields has also bought herself another one and offered that second printer to help us if she has any free space.”

KDMS can now produce up to 50 face shields a day andare sending out instruction leaflets with every face shield.

The team has even made the blueprints for the visors available for other men’s sheds across the country to use in the effort to prop up an NHS struggling without the protective equipment they need.

They’re not the only people doing what they can to respond to NHS workers’ calls for more protective gear. In Milton Keynes a 15-year-old turned a boring Sunday night into the beginning of an operation getting plastic visors to frontline workers across swathes of the country.