Still Building America: New York machine shop full throttle on PPE production

As the COVID-19 cases began to spread across New York, one Long Island machine shop stepped up and created the M1 reusable respirator.

Their workhorse for the production is a Liquid Crystal Magna 3D printer from Photocentric recently purchased to manufacture custom parts for cars and motorcycles, but now it’s pumping out life-saving personal protective equipment (PPE) for medical personnel, emergency response, and other essential workers.

In mid-March Long Island Racing machine shop announced their development of a reusable respirator prototype. The goal was to provide PPE now, not later.

“We have been full throttle on both production and development,” said owner Matt Mendez. “As you may have guessed, this is much more important than velocity stacks, etc.”

“We’re doing the best we can with this. It’s just a couple of guys in a motorcycle shop,” said Christian Price, a team member at Long Island Racing.

Mendez and Price put out a call on social media for resin and filter materials, setting up a GoFundMe page to assist with their efforts. Within a few days they received an overwhelming flow of support from the local community, customers, supporters, friends, and family, raising $5,000 to help move along production on the reusable respirators.

Not only did the team upscale their development and production efforts from that point, but they also updated the design so that it could be vacuum molded. The goal: to share the molds with other vacuum-forming shops so that output could increase by thousands per week. With no plans to sell the product, but only donate the life-saving PPE to those most in need, the team has remained solely focused on protecting their community. Long Island Racing is even sharing files and instructions on its website so others can 3D print the respirators.

“We have been completely dedicated to making these masks, and it has been quite the ride,” said Mendez. “What's funny is that without developing velocity stacks for the GSX-Rs, I would have never been able to model something as complex as a respirator. What a great time for organic shape design.”

Mendez has spent hours talking with community leaders and getting the designs approved by hospitals. By March 27 some masks had already reached health care workers on the front lines in New York. And by the first week in April Mendez had developed a way to multilayer-print the respirator.

Improving the design day by day with feedback from front-line workers, Mendez and Price have kept production moving along. Along with strap revisions came redesign of the 3D-printed back clips with a finger brake for adjustment to ease the difference in head sizes to allow for comfort, and a thinner nose bridge to get a better seal. A front baffle was designed and printed to allow more protection from vapor and droplets hitting the filtration dead-on. Another revision includes a bag filter and a mouth guard.

In this video, Mendez demonstrates the bag filter snap adapter, or HFA for short. “It's an awesome solution that helps with combining higher airflow with superfine filtration. This filter material can catch 0.3-micron particles at a higher rate than an N95. We want to beat that due to our innate competitive nature.”

Considering the needs of the police, fire department, and EMT front-line workers, the team also came up with a new design that includes a front guard and voice cone for better radio communication since some masks can hinder voice through a mask. “It’s vital for proper radio commands on the grid as the front liners deal with situations ... very sick people are being loaded into ambulances by these people,” said Price, “so we have considered all aspects of this fight and have been working on the solution.”

The team has been working hard at staying healthy and keeping the shop sanitized for each day’s production. Price has called himself the “Corona Liquidator.” “I have been treating the shop like it’s radioactive. I come in before the crew and wash down everything.”

The Long Island Racing team is now printing masks 24/7 with no plans to stop until every essential worker has the protection they need to fight COVID-19. These guys have huge hearts for the community and for the country.

Stay tuned to all of Long Island Racing’s incredible efforts on Instagram: @liracing and @christian_liracing.

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