A Mask in Thirty Seconds

[drpeter]

A Public Service Message:

The specialists are advising us to wear masks when we shop or go out to any space which is even partly public. Here's a quick way to make a mask, given their shortage in the markets.

An Indian doctor friend from Kansas City (an old schoolmate) posted this on my old school google group. Courtesy of The Times of India:

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com...e-a-mask-in-30-seconds/videoshow/74987354.cms

A piece of square cloth and two rubber bands – that seems to be all of the easily obtainable components that are needed. Clever and inventive. I just tried it with a navy-and-white polka dot pocket square, and it works very well. Looks great too -- I'll try a paisley square next, LOL. It should be great for trips to the grocery store or pharmacy. I think it should be easy to wear as well.

 

[Dhaller]

I saw this earlier today - I told my wife to go get her Hermes scarves! Not amused.

I was thinking of doing this along with HEPA inserts (I have a HEPA vacuum cleaner, so I would cannibalize some unopened filters): basically just insert a rectangle of HEPA filter into the cloth pre-fold.

DH

 

[drpeter]

I saw this earlier today - I told my wife to go get her Hermes scarves! Not amused.

I was thinking of doing this along with HEPA inserts (I have a HEPA vacuum cleaner, so I would cannibalize some unopened filters): basically just insert a rectangle of HEPA filter into the cloth pre-fold.

DH

Interesting. The filters are a great idea. But I read that the COVID-19 virus is 60nm to 140nm in diameter, while the HEPA filter catches particles only up 0.3 microns in diameter (300 nm). So would an additional carbon filter of some sort be required to trap this particular virus? Or are there different grades of HEPA filters?

 

[Dhaller]

Well, I experimented a bit, and found that human lungs can't generate enough suction to actually breathe through a HEPA filter; the airflow just goes around the filter.

(HEPA filters can capture 0.01 micron particles, which falls in the SARS-COV-2 range. HEPA's test standard is 0.3 microns, but actual NASA studies show that it captures much finer particles. Moot, since you can't actually breathe through it, though!)

Carbon filters aren't at all effective against viruses.

Practically speaking, what you want is simply a mask to prevent spittle projection; hence the CDC recommendation for a cloth mask as a mitigating technology. Still, the tinker in my will play around with some ideas.

DH

 

[Dhaller]

I actually think a geometric solution, rather than an impermeability solution, might be worth exploring.

Imagine a mask of rigid material, such that it's composed of overlapping layers, so airflow is redirected through "switchbacks": gasses could pass through with ease, but particles (which need straight-path trajectories) would be impeded and captured.

I wish I had a 3D printer at home to prototype this!

(I am coming up with such a huge list of Stuff Everyone Should Own, from kettlebells to 1500 watt step-up transformers (long story) to 3D printers. Maybe a beer-brewing setup or still. Definitely a generator.)

DH

 

[ran23]

I made a similar mask out of hounds tooth hankie, fogged up my glasses too much. yes, trying to exhale out of my mouth. I like the look of Japanese better grade masks.

 

[mikel]

Imagine a mask of rigid material, such that it's composed of overlapping layers, so airflow is redirected through "switchbacks"

You may find design inspiration in some anti-pollution cycling masks. While they may not have the switchbacks, I have seen some that are more rigid. Good idea though.

 

[Mr. B. Scott Robinson]

My solution...15 seconds.

keffiyeh ties into a shemagh. Desert survival training 101.

Salaam,

BSR

 

[eagle2250]

My solution...15 seconds.

keffiyeh ties into a shemagh. Desert survival training 101.

View attachment 42264

Salaam,

BSR

That just seems more elegant/sophisticated than my bandanna and if the weave is tight enough to stop sand penetration in a sandstorm, it should certainly give pause to a viral bug...yes, no?

 

[Howard]

My solution...15 seconds.

keffiyeh ties into a shemagh. Desert survival training 101.

View attachment 42264

Salaam,

BSR

You look like you're going to rob a bank.

 

[Mr. B. Scott Robinson]

You look like you're going to rob a bank.

or hijack a plane. Do people do that any more. Seems like it fell out of fashion in the ‘90s.

Cheers,

BSR

 

[Oldsarge]

or hijack a plane. Do people do that any more. Seems like it fell out of fashion in the ‘90s.

Cheers,

BSR

It kind of did when the other passengers took to beating the snot out of the would be hijackers. Something that should have been encouraged decades ago.

 

[eagle2250]

It kind of did when the other passengers took to beating the snot out of the would be hijackers. Something that should have been encouraged decades ago.

Indeed, mob justice does have a certain appeal to it. I fondly remember when we attacked Dr Frankenstein's castle and soon fount our selves chasing his home-built monstrosity up the hillside with our torches lighting the way and our clubs and pitchforks at thew ready for delivering hard justice. "Those were the days, my friend; we thought they would never end"...Bwahahahaha!

 

[drpeter]

My solution...15 seconds.

keffiyeh ties into a shemagh. Desert survival training 101.

View attachment 42264

Salaam,

BSR

Aleikum salaam back to you. Ingenious. The Wild West, at least courtesy of Hollywood and the comic books, showed us something similar -- the baddies take their neckerchiefs and make a mask out of them before holding up the bank, LOL.

 

[Howard]

or hijack a plane. Do people do that any more. Seems like it fell out of fashion in the ‘90s.

Cheers,

BSR

I see a lot of the people wear the masks like they're some sort of a gangster.

 

[Mr. B. Scott Robinson]

I see a lot of the people wear the masks like they're some sort of a gangster.

The keffiyeh became fashionable among the young and uninformed in the ‘90s. Much like the Che Guevara t-shirt, it became a symbol of an amorphous poorly directed sense of sartorial band wagon rebellion against....something.

Cheers,

BSR

 

[Oldsarge]

The keffiyeh became fashionable among the young and uninformed in the ‘90s. Much like the Che Guevara t-shirt, it became a symbol of an amorphous poorly directed sense of sartorial band wagon rebellion against....something.

Cheers,

BSR

Or against . . . their own imaginations!

 

[drpeter]

The keffiyeh became fashionable among the young and uninformed in the ‘90s. Much like the Che Guevara t-shirt, it became a symbol of an amorphous poorly directed sense of sartorial band wagon rebellion against....something.

Cheers,

BSR

You're right. I think originally, some people in Europe or elsewhere wore this scarf/bandanna (especially the ones with the black and white houndstooth pattern) to show solidarity with the Palestinians. Later on, many young people adopted this as a fashion statement of sort, or maybe a rebelliousness symbol, without thinking about or knowing what it stood for originally.

From a sartorial point of view this is an interesting trend, since most people (with the significant exception of readers of our august forum) have little idea where clothes and fashions came from, or which practices led to the styles we see in modern clothing. No shortcoming this, just a lack of interest or concern. For example it is said that the modern necktie originated with the Croats who wore strips of cloth (silk?) around their necks when they rode into battle. Hence the French term cravate for necktie (from their word for Croat). Maybe this practice may have come to the Croats from the medieval practice of a knight wearing a piece of cloth given to him by his lady into battle.

There is an interesting, but inexact, parallel in language: the semantic drift process whereby the original meaning of a word gets changed and generalized to other meanings through a path of related interconnections. An instance of this process is the word ghetto. This word originally meant the Jewish quarter in Italian towns. Later on, it came into popular use as a part of a city where people who belonged in almost any category could be grouped. While on sabbatical years ago, I lived in a house in Urbana, Illinois which was in an area they called the Faculty Ghetto! Lots of U of I faculty had homes there, and we rented one of those homes from another professor who was away at Cornell on his sabbatical, LOL. The kicker is that now people, forgetting or not knowing the origins of the word, say Jewish ghetto. To me that is almost like Americans saying they want a glass of chai tea. The word chai means tea in Hindi!

 

[Oldsarge]

 

[Howard]

You could wear that and people won't know you've grown facial hair but make sure you have brown hair or it won't match.