Experimental Face Shield Against Droplets

A
very simple face shield, that catches some breathed, coughed or sneezed out droplets, with out visually covering the face.

-It stops the wearer and others from touching his face.

-It might lower the probability that droplets from outside reach the face, by forcing them to take a longer way with more turns around the shield, especially, since part of that way is against gravity.

-It can be cleaned, disinfected and probably also sterilized, so that it can be reused by the same person.

-If you use it, you can give your self the above arguments to feel a little saver, while keeping scarce personal protective equipment, where it is needed most, with medical professionals and diagnosed sick people.

-It is designed for easy at home and low cost mass production.

I can not say whether this works and if it works how effective it is.

I would be grateful for any well-founded feedback and happy about any sort of suggestions, how this might be improved.

-The best protection is of course to stay the fuck at home and to stay the fuck away from people that are not part of your household.

-1 Shower liner

-1 sharp knife or scissors

-1 Bottle, with a narrower Part somewhere on the body

- Para cord or similar

-1 kitchen towel or similar

Cut
a rectangle of about 100cm * 40cm out of the shower liner.

This will be the face shield

Fold the short Side in halve and cut about 3cm from the top into the material, starting at the fold line.

The stripe you are partially cutting off this way is the head band.

Cut just deep enough that it fits over your head that is probably less, than you think. If you do it wrong, just make a second cut below the first.

On the opposite side, about 3cm from the bottom end, cut in the same way, but along almost the entire breath of the material. Leave about 7cm on each side, so it still holds together.

This stripe is a waistband for your face shield, to keep wind and fast movements from blowing the lower part about.

Cut off the top and bottom part of a clean plastic bottle.

The bottle will keep distance between your body and the shower liner face shield, so that air can circulate better and it fogs up less.

Cut little hooks in the bottom side of the bottle, by making two cuts, that meet on their upper end.

Cut a few stripes from a kitchen towel or other fabric.

Cut a piece of para cord or band long enough to hang around your neck and a little extra, to knot around the bottle.

Hook
the stripe of kitchen towel into the hooks you cut out of the bottle, so that it forms a ring on the inside.

A lot of the water vapor from your breath will condensate on the bottle. With out the ring of fabric inside, it starts dripping out after a short while and we want to prevent droplet infections.

Knot the para cord around the bottle, so that you can hang it from your neck.

Hang the Bottle around your neck, and your head and shoulders through the lower cut, you made in the shower liner piece. Make sure it sits very loosely on your body.

The end of the shower liner should more or less align with the end of the bottle, so that air can move through as well as left and right around the bottle.

Pull the strip you cut out on the upper side of the shower liner piece over the back of your head and tuck the sides in behind your head.

Let the front side hang loosely over your face, so that air can flow below the shield. Making sure, that you can breath.

-If it stops you form breathing, you are wearing it wrong and should take it off immediately!

The
shower liner I used is very nice and stable, it does not smell.

Vision is a little bit disturbed. Reading and writing is not exactly a joy, but I am writing this wearing it and, well, it can be done.

It does not tend to fog up, when breathing out through the nose, or into the bottle. I tried running in it for 5 minutes and it works fine. When I was out of breath I breathed into the bottle.

In colder temperatures, it tends to fog up a bit more, as well as under windy conditions. Sitting down also can disturb the air flow, causing it to fog up more. Wearing a jacket over it, also obstructs the air flow and makes it fog up.

In none of this cases has breathing been a problem.

You can clean it with normal cleaning material in your sink and dry it like you would a towel. You can also heat it in an oven. I tried 90 degrees with out problem. As far as I understand, this should destroy most bacteria in viruses.

I would replace the stripes of kitchen towel after each use.