A hobby has led to a Spalding couple making potentially life saving personal protection equipment for health care staff across the country in their spare time.
Luke and Anna Atkin have already made more than 60 protective visors and ear savers from their home on the Hayfields estate.
And that’s with engineer Luke working full time at Deister Electriconics while there’s also 15-month-old daughter Tara to care for.
While Luke is at work, Anna, who has been furloughed from her role as an office admin at an agricultural company, is helping making the masks during the day.
Luke then takes up making the masks when he comes home from work, often working late at night to keep up with demand.
It’s all come about because Luke has for the last few years had a side line in 3D printing and has his own custom built machine.
Luke said: “There’s a lot of demand for the visors.
“I started off offering them to NHS group in Cambridge and then we did some for Peterborough City Hospital.
“Since then I’ve had requests from a large area including as far away as Teeside.
“I’ve sent a few to a number of care homes too through Project Wingman.
“I have the 3D printer and had seen the demand for the masks, so I just started making them.
“I can’t do it at work, so while I’m there Anna keeps the machine going so we’re able to make as many as possible.”
Luke and Anna have completed 60 masks of one particular design and they’ve now moved on to creating a new design that’s been trialled and created in the Czech Republic as being even safer.
But as well as the two hours it takes to make every mask it also costs money.
Therefore Luke has set up a fundraising page so he can continue to make the masks.
He’s also on the look out for 20mm buttonhole elastic which he says has become difficult to source due to the high demand.
“I’ll try and help any NHS groups that get in touch if I can,” Luke continued.
“We are however limited to one machine from which we currently cover the cost of the energy and wear and tear.
“Our Go Fund me page and donations have been used to source more materials to continue making the face shields, this has been a huge help for us.
“I cannot thank everyone who has donated enough.
“Our plan is to continue making these as much as possible and get them to as many people in need as we can!
“So please if there are teams in need of these things they can by all means get in touch via my Facebook page.
“Alongside this I have also been using my experience to help other makers with 3D printers across the UK.
“I am more than happy to give pointers to anyone out there who has a 3D printer and wants help to do this!”
To donate to Luke search for his page ‘Help me keep printing for the NHS and frontline team’ on www.gofundme.com
For more information and to see more about how Luke and Anna make the masks you can visit the Facebook page Luke Atkin 3D Printing and Design.
