In one night, Richmond’s Justin Ruscheinski went from making parts for his remote control cars on his 3D printer to making parts to help save nurses’ ears from pain.
Sounds weird?
Not really, given that Ruscheinski realized how sore front line health workers’ ears must be getting from the elastic rubbing on them from wearing face masks all day and night during long shifts.
So, instead of using his home 3D printer to fashion plastic parts for his RC vehicles, he has produced hundreds of four-inch wide “ear savers,” which have already been distributed to staff at Richmond Hospital and Vancouver General.
The little pieces of plastic attach to the elastic from the masks and take the pressure off the wearer’s ears.
“I got the motivation from a Facebook group and then just went straight to work on it at home,” said Ruscheinski, who works in warehouse security and photography.
“I might as well help out a bit and keep the printer going. I’m going to keep doing it as long as it’s needed.
“We all need to help each other out in these times.”
To keep up with demand, Ruscheinski has just splashed out almost $800 on a new 3D printer from Amazon.
“One batch (from the printer) equals 24 and that takes about two hours to produce,” added Ruscheinski, noting is only other cost is buying the plastic filament, which is about $30 to $40 to produce about 100 ear savers.
“I’ll maybe do face shields and masks later.”
He has set up a GoFundMe page to help defray some of the costs of making the ear savers, Click here to help.
He has set up an email ([email protected]) for healthcare workers to send in requests on how many they need. Ear savers can either be delivered or picked up.
