Employees from J.F. Taylor, Inc. are Working Around the Clock to Donate Much Needed PPE to Emergency Personnel

April 8, 2020

Ryan Gallagher, Ryan Montgomery, and Samuel Silva

J.F. Taylor, Inc. of Lexington Park is leveraging its engineering and manufacturing resources to provide our local emergency management heroes with needed Personal Protection Equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Upon hearing of the communities need for face-shields, their Additive Manufacturing Team, led by Mr. Doug Sundheim and Mr. Samuel Silva, J.F. Taylor’s 3D printing specialists, jumped into action. Finding a face-shield design on the internet, Mr. Silva made a few design improvements. Using their state-of-the-art production-grade Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printers to manufacture face-shield frames and their CNC water jet to cut the polycarbonate shields, J.F. Taylor built a small number of prototypes. The key materials used for the production units are ABS-M30i biocompatible printable plastic for the frame and polycarbonate impact resistant clear plastic for the shield. These materials can be quickly cleaned with an anti-septic, making the shields re-usable.

The prototypes were sent to Calvert Hospital, St. Mary’s Hospital and the St. Mary’s County Emergency Management Center. “Each location immediately approved of the design and the orders came in”, said Silva. The 3D printing team currently has J.F. Taylor’s two state-of-the-art Stratasys 450 FDM 3D printers running around the clock producing 75 face-shields per week for donation to the community. “We are thankful to be able to provide this equipment to our First Responders. They are on the front lines everyday supporting the people of Southern Maryland, and all of us at J.F. Taylor are excited to be using our technology to support them”, Silva added.

In addition to 3D printing the face-shields, J.F. Taylor is also producing 200 cloth masks for the Naval Air Station. Tammy Tilghman leads J.F. Taylor’s fabric manufacturing shop that is producing washable cloth masks. The masks are designed to accommodate replaceable filters. J.F. Taylor expects to deliver all 200 masks within two weeks of receiving the Naval Air Station’s request.

J.F. Taylor, Inc. is an engineering and manufacturing company that provides products and services to NAVAIR, NAWCAD and other DOD services. John Taylor, Sr. started this family run company in 1983 and it has grown to over 500 employees. J.F. Taylor provides engineering services to the Pax River community focusing on the areas of Mission Systems, Flight Testing, and Simulation. J.F. Taylor also owns and operates 245,000 sq. ft. of engineering and manufacturing space in Lexington Park where they design, manufacture, and deliver complete Aircraft Training Systems and Aircraft, Shipboard, and Ground Vehicle systems, components, and upgrade kits.