How to: Cut out the shield clear sheets

 The step of cutting out the ICUshieldsMN face shield sheet is another one of the ten steps to make a shield. It takes a total of 5 hours to make one shield.

The shields we make use the highest quality materials possible to provide the best quality face shield. I tested a variety of brands and thicknesses of sheets before finding the best option. Each shield costs just under $5 each to make and a large part of the cost is the sheet.  So if you are doing this step please don't hesitate to ask questions. 

The plastic is a specific blend of PTEG clear plastic that is .02 inches thick. Most other shields clear sheets that are a third as thick. The other problem with other shields is they use a far to small of a shield sheet. Convience and the cheap cost of using clear 3 ring binder sheets is most common. Our finished shield sheet is 12 inches wide and 9.5 inches tall.

The sheets come in 12x24" lengths. The first step is to trace with the provided template on each sheet in this way:

After they are traced with a sharpie permanent marker you can cut them out carefully.

When cutting please try to create a smooth entrance and exit so the resulting corner is smooth. Even when using a smooth template for tracing it doesn't translate to smooth cut if following the line. So if you just go in a bit it'll make a smooth curve. But no worries if all this doesn't make sense:) I always look over every shield and make adjustments if there's something to trim or fix. My motto when making shields is to make the shield I'm holding at the time as if it was the shield I was going to use myself.

You can see on the bottom right of this example the corner is a bit abrupt. So it's an easy fix to cut it off to make a shield sheet that has smooth corners:) 

I removed the bit of excess on the right.

The final touch is going back and taking a very small edge of the top corners. It's important to open the scissors wide enough and as you start the cut to continue in a smooth motion closing the scissor while at the same time navigating a turn.  If too much is cut off the nearly $2 sheet will be ruined. So if you don't quite feel comfortable with the final step that is understandable. But again, none of this is instruction is meant to sound stressful. We're not making Swiss watches:) We're just trying to make a quality free shield that looks like we care about attention to details like sharp edges etc. 

This is the hole punch I made for the shield sheets. If you are wondering why the sheets are cloudy it's because both sides have a protective film that can be removed by the person who gets the shield. 

No need to trace the punch holes now that I have my home made hole punch machine here:)

With the extra sheet section we send them to another volunteer who makes free eye protection with it:

Thanks! -Matt Behning

How to Clean up a Shield Frame

How to: Straps for ICUshieldsMN frames

How to: Cut out the shield clear sheets

How to: Prep Clear Sheets for shields