The irony of Steve Methia’s retirement is, while the world is coming to a standstill, he’s gotten busier, and while the rest of the world is trying not to socialize, he has a steady stream of visitors at his Mattapoisett door.
The pickups and deliveries won’t stop anytime soon.
Locally known on Facebook and other social media platforms for his custom work with motorcycles, Methia has repurposed his hobby shop to produce face shields for medical and other essential personnel, and for those who cannot avoid facing the public during their day.
The irony is not lost on Methia, who will turn 66 this month.
“Normally, I’m a hermit,” he laughed. “Everything’s been on hold because I’ve been doing this for a week and a half.”
By Monday, he had made approximately 80 face shields that his girlfriend, Mary Ellen Silva, helps deliver where needed.
A retired mechanic who worked 42 years for Verizon out of the company’s Taunton location, Methia was already spending the majority of free time in his basement, albeit on other, less-urgent projects like Ducati motorcycles and furniture repairs and restorations.
A self-described “tinkerer” and “dumpster diver,” Methia had decided five years ago that retirement from Verizon was his ticket not to sit back, but to do the things he really wanted to do when he didn’t have the time.
“I have two goals every day – one is to learn something and one is to make something,” he said, admitting regret over the math and science he didn’t pay enough attention to in high school. “Now I can’t get enough of it. The machine shop has taken over my craziness.”
Methia’s “craziness” makes nothing but sense to desperate, frontline workers dealing without adequate protection. His 3D printer was admittedly more of a science project until COVID-19 prompted his new hobby.
“I’m not an engineer,” said Methia, whose lathe and milling machine that help him build motorcycle parts now function as his research-and-development department for tweaks to the face-shields being produced by the two 3D printers in his home office.
The second printer belongs to the Old Rochester Regional Junior High School. It wasn’t working properly when Methia began soliciting donations to help him with the face-shield project, but thanks to his day-long effort to fix it, there are now two printers working side by side, each producing a face-shield every few hours.
The community has also noticed.
ORR Junior High also donated filament, the spools of synthetic material for the 3D printer, and John Coucci of Guido’s Glass in New Bedford donated the clear plastic for the shields.
Methia performs laser cuts himself on equipment owned by custom engraver FME Technologies based in Mattapoisett. He waits until night to use FME’s machine due to resulting fumes.
One of his neighbors is a seamstress, and those who are making cloth facemasks have given Methia the stretch material he uses to fashion the elastic straps for his face shields.
“A lot of this stuff is (typically available) on Amazon, but they’re shutting that all down because they’re only giving it to essential (medical industries),” he said. “It’s been difficult finding the supplies. I had some filament in stock, but I used it up really quick.”
Old Hammondtown School also donated some filament, and Methia said he is trying to make contact with Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical High School.
“The more printers I have, I can make more product,” he said.
The design, procured online, is derived from 3D printer company Prusa, based in the Czech Republic. The company is open source, which means copycats are welcome to adopt Prusa’s technology and reproduce it themselves without copyright infringement.
The absence of such a legal hurdle is music to the ears of everyone affected, however indirectly, by the coronavirus pandemic.
Methia has made his own modifications using computer-aided design (CAD) programming. “I’m constantly making changes, depending on what straps I have,” he said. “I spend all day and all night, between changing the filaments and changing the programs. When it’s done, I make a new one.
“I’m going around and getting supplies. I’ve been doing it 24/7. Everyone else is bored, they’ve got nothing to do,” he said of his new mission. “It doesn’t bother me when I don’t leave the house. I can do everything I need to do right from the house. And I’ve had so much support.”
Methia looks forward to giving back ORR Junior High a perfectly working 3D printer that students there can use as part of a normal life that these last few weeks has become elusive and precious. He won’t take money, only requests, and the donations to help him fulfill those requests.
“I’m a big believer that, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem,” he said.
This is the first in a series of stories that will highlight some of the special efforts local people are making to help their communities in a time of crisis. If you know a “hometown hero” in the Tri-Town that you want to tell us about, tell us about that person in an email, sending it with your name and phone number to news@wanderer.com.