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Plastics Technology recently blogged about Thermoformed Plastics of New England (TPNE), Biddeford, Maine, a 17-year-old custom thermoformer that services a broad range of markets starting with medical device housings/packaging and materials handling & donnage to telecommunications protective housings (repeaters/radomes), to retail, defense and food packaging. In March, the company began to thermoform PET face shields for a number of companies in the greater New England and Pennsylvania area who contracted with various hospitals and other agencies of frontliners, and who were responsible for the assembly of TPNE’s face shields—adding foam and straps. The company recently completed production of over 1-million thermoformed shields. In addition, TPNE has donated over 16,000 face shields to local frontliners.

Now, TPNE’s has introduced its own FaceShield Plus which allows for a high-quality band with replaceable face shields. The idea to reduce waste and bring costs down came to TPNE company founder and general manager Paul Tyson while working with his operations manager Robert Stoddard. Tyson noted that many of the 3D printed headbands would break over time. After talking with his staff, Tyson said it was clear that rapid development of a new product was necessary. “We were looking for a longer-term solution that was less expensive and more efficient and we found it in the design and execution using injection molding for Faceshields Plus,

 

The headband is injection molded  using white polypropylene by , Sanford, Maine, and is fastened with a white silicone adjustable strap. Each head band comes with 20 replacement shields. Tyson added, “We have been able to bring costs down on this product because the user retains the headband and silicone strap. What would usually cost 3-4 dollars per use can be brought down as low as 65 cents a use. There are obvious benefits to the environment by not continually discarding the head bands and swapping out the face shields.”