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th ei fp .c a Th e IF P -H al to n H ill s | T hu rs da y, Ju ne 18 ,2 02 0 | 20 Helping small and medium businesses connect with customers. marketing360.ca learn more at Georgetown's trusted choice for hearing care 360 Guelph St., Unit 44 Georgetown (In the Knolcrest Centre) 905.877.8828 Armstrong Ave Delrex Blvd Finally, test drive hearing aids that let you decide at your own speed. At Halton Audiometric Centre, we believe the only way to know which hearing aid is right for you is to experience the benefits in your day-to-day life. Take home and test drive state of the art hearing aids today with NO COMMITMENT OR DEPOSIT REQUIRED. Call us today for your free consultation Brad Cairns couldn't be- lieve his eyes. He'd stopped by Rollcut Inc. to watch a demonstra- tion of the dies the compa- ny had created in order to make face shields. Using a hand-cranked machine that Cairns likened to a spaghetti maker, they rolled a sheet of plastic through two rollers, and out came the finished product - a face shield with all the appropriate holes to fasten a strap cut out. Cairns and his staff had been cutting the shields on a router, but it wasn't a very efficient process. Now Rollcut's dies had cut that process down to about a minute. For hours, they took turns cranking out hundreds of face shields. And this was just the test. Once the dies were put on a machine, the produc- tion went from one a min- ute to one every second. Georgetown's Boris Barbir has been making dies for 45 years, learning the trade from his father in Croatia. He has helped companies make every- thing from car parts to se- curity tabs to tea bags to helmets. But the Rollcut owner says this die is the most important one he has ever made. "These face shields - if that's what it takes to save somebody, if they help keep them safe, what's more important than that?" Many of those face shields are coming back to Halton. They've supplied them to a dozen hospitals, including Joseph Brant in Burlington, Oakville Tra- falgar Memorial, Milton District and Georgetown, as well as the Milton Fire Department and Halton Police. Local businesses, like Zesty Pita in Burling- ton and Oakville, are also using the shields. Cairns runs a wood- working company out of St. Thomas called Best Damn Doors. His friend in Germany told him how the country was being impact- ed by COVID-19, and that he had better prepare be- cause it would eventually reach Canada. He told him face shields were in high demand and recom- mended that he buy as much plastic as he could. Cairns did, and his friend's warning proved to be right. "We're a small company. I sat down with my staff and said, 'Do you want to roll the dice on getting in- volved, do what's right and contribute something?'" They quickly switched from producing cabinets to producing and assembling adjustable face shields. He has since recruited five other companies to form Wood Workers Unite. To- gether, they are producing and distributing 15,000 face shields per week. "I couldn't supply these without the help of Roll- cut," said Cairns, who found the company by chance in a Google search. "They've gone over and above to make sure we don't run out of parts." Cairns purchased one of Rollcut's older machines. But until it is moved and reassembled, Barbir has lent him one of his test ma- chines so they can contin- ue to produce face shields. "What kind of company does that? Just lets you take one of their ma- chines?" Cairns said. Barbir said it is all about the spirit of co-oper- ation. And, he said, as the country recovers, there will be an opportunity to repay those who have helped out. "We've become too reli- ant on China and the U.S.," he said. "We're going to need to boost the economy. We need to buy more from Canadian companies, help our own country, even if it costs a little more." NEWS LOCAL COMPANY HELPING SUPPLY FACE SHIELDS TO FRONT-LINE WORKERS HERB GARBUTT hgarbutt@metroland.com Brad Cairns and Rollcut's Boris Barbir (centre) and Heiko Mantik (right) do a test run of a face shield. Herb Garbutt/Torstar