High-tech Bantam Tools in Peekskill to donate machines to design ventilators face shields

Bre Pettis, owner of Bantam Tools, on why he chose Peekskill for the site of his high tech manufacturing company. Rockland/Westchester Journal News

PEEKSKILL - In the battle against the coronavirus pandemic, high-tech manufacturer Bantam Tools will donate its portable, computerized design machines to organizations that may use them to create everything from valves for ventilators to components for medical personnel's face shields.

Bantam Tools, which relocated to Peekskill from the San Francisco Bay area, has received 67 applications in three days inquiring about the milling machines, from a fire department in Westchester County to hospitals, universities' research groups and applicants in other countries.

Bantam Tools makes the advanced machines, which are small enough to sit on a desktop and that designers and engineers use to fabricate three-dimensional prototype products.

Buy Photo

Bre Pettis, left, owner of Bantam Tools, shows State Senator Pete Harckham the desktop size PCB Milling Machine that Bantam Tools will be producing at their new facility in Peekskill Nov. 18, 2019. The milling machine produces devices such as prototypes of circuit boards, and is also used for metal engraving for uses in jewelry making and other industries. The company held a grand opening ceremony Monday. (Photo: Seth Harrison/The Journal News)

"We're reviewing this initial round and we'll probably start donating several machines beginning next week and the following week," Zach Dunham, Bantam Tools' director of marketing, said Wednesday.

Some of the applications that Bantam Tools has received include:

Organizations interested in milling various clasps and clips that would be part of a face shield.

Organizations looking at prototyping components for germicidal lighting, which uses ultra-violet light to kill viruses. It might mean something like a box in which something that needs to be disinfected is exposed to such light.

A slew of applicants interested in manufacturing parts for ventilators, which are breathing-assistance machines. "It could be a valve; it could be a part that at the last minute breaks on the hospital floor and someone doesn't actually have the tool that they need right there and then," Dunham said.

A research area called microfluidics that requires machines to mill tiny channels in a piece of plastic through which fluids flow in certain ways. "It could allow them to assist in experiments," Dunham said, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology uses several of Bantam Tools' machines for such research.

"The interesting thing is there are going to be ideas that people are going to come up with," he said, "that we don't know of right now."

Bantam Tools was founded by entrepreneur Bre Pettis, who is also known for co-founding MakerBot, a manufacturer that helped to pioneer 3D printers. Bantam Tools' desktop milling machines are used to design everything from motherboards for tech devices to products crafted by jewelry designers. The company has said more than 150 university labs and maker spaces worldwide use the machines, including New York University and Stanford University, as well as companies and organizations.

REPURPOSED: Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Ossining company plans to make 200,000 face shields

CORONAVIRUS: 3D printers used to educate and entertain kids are redeployed to the coronavirus frontlines

CORONAVIRUS: In communities where kids lack technology, online school is a big challenge

Buy Photo

Bantam Tools, located on North Water Street in Peekskill, held its grand opening Nov. 18, 2019. At the Peekskill site, Bantam Tools will be producing prototypes of a desktop PCB Milling Machine that is used to produce circuit boards, and is also used for metal engraving for uses in jewelry making and other industries. (Photo: Seth Harrison/The Journal News)

In Peekskill, a grand opening was held in November for Bantam Tools' 8,700-square-foot headquarters/manufacturing facility at 135 N. Water St.,an adaptive reuse of a 100-year-old building that is one symbol of the northern Westchester city's revitalization.

Come March, cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, began to spread rapidly in the Lower Hudson Valley. And companies, businesses and others in Westchester and Rockland counties have stepped forward to make products for health care workers, first responders and others.

An Ossining company that normally makes home decorations such as picture frames has shifted to making face shields, best if used with a face mask underneath. A math and science teacher in Eastchester has been using 3D printers in his New Rochelle basement to make the face shields too.

At Bantam Tools, Dunham said everyone weighed what would be the most effective way to quickly help.

"Where we settled was I think the most useful thing that we can do is ship out an extremely portable device that could already help an organization," Dunham said. "Maybe the best thing for us to do is kind of augment someone's tool-set who is already working on this problem."

Bantam Tools will be doing more. Starting Thursday, an employee will use a laser cutter and 3D printers to make face shields.

"We could do something on the order of several hundred a week," Dunham said. "Those will obviously find their way to local hospitals and folks in need of them in the area."

Bantam Tools has also been hosting a weekly livestream that features engineers and designers from around the world. "Next week," Dunham said, "we'll have a material scientist on to speak about all of the technology that's going into designing face masks."

Michael McKinney covers northern Westchester. Follow him on Twitter @mikemckwrite. Visit offers.lohud.com to sign up for a subscription.

Read or Share this story: https://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/westchester/peekskill/2020/04/01/peekskill-bantam-tools-donates-machines-masks/5104214002/