Modify first V1 face mask?

[jessiew]

Hi all! Tried searching on this topic and couldn't find anything so hoping someone is able to provide some input. Was curious if anyone has modified the very first V1 face mask and inserted a pipe cleaner or plastic tie on the nose bridge to help make a more snug fit? I wear glasses so hoping to modify my current mask instead of purchasing another. Thanks in advance!

[BWeaves]

When the metal bit that's in there broke, I just slid in another twist tie and shaped it to my nose.

I wear glasses and it took a little trial and error to figure out the correct nose placement of the top of the mask to make the V1 fit without steaming up my glasses, but it works.

[moriond]

Hi all! Tried searching on this topic and couldn't find anything so hoping someone is able to provide some input. Was curious if anyone has modified the very first V1 face mask and inserted a pipe cleaner or plastic tie on the nose bridge to help make a more snug fit? I wear glasses so hoping to modify my current mask instead of purchasing another. Thanks in advance!

@G42 likes to use the plastic ties that come at the top of Peet's Coffee Bags (I used these as a way to control straps on the Luminary 15 before we had the strap retainers). I found that in a few cases the stitching on the band of the v1 nose bridge was too tight for these to fit, but in most cases I could slide these in. By the way, I haven't actually had to do this for my own masks. When they sent us the prototypes, the wire didn't come inserted (it was separately in the package), and we were experimenting with other ties etc. that could be used if people lost the wire, which now comes inserted in the mask, and with the ends folded back). I don't wear glasses, but @G42 does, so you may find that this works well for you. (I also don't drink that much coffee, but I have a source of these ties from the tops of Peet's Coffee bags someone else who does). This works pretty well, because the outside of the ties is coated with plastic, and also gently ridged so that it slides into place without slipping. The only caveat is that in a few of the v1 masks the spacing may be sewn just slightly too narrowly for this twist tie to fit in. This fit into all the v1 masks I've received except for one of the very first ones that they sent us (I think this was light blue in color, and it nearly fit).

HTH

moriond

ETA: Some pictures

This is a v1 mask with the default twist-tie inserted in place. Below it is one of the plastic ties from the top of Peet's coffee bags. Above it is another grocery tie

I've taken out the twist-tie that ships with the mask, and inserted the Peet's coffee tie. You can see that it occupies most of the width, but fits in easily, and is flat and moldable, so that it works well to fit over the nose. Other solutions will also work. You can cut the long edges and bend it back so there are no sharp edges.

[sturbridge]

I used some copper wire that I had in my jewelry making box and bent the ends back so there'd be no sharp edges.

[G42]

As @moriond said, I use the flat plastic ties from the Peet's coffee bags. Only one of my masks hasn't been able to fit it.
Usually I cut off a small bit of excess length, insert the tie, and bend over both ends to keep it secure. I find that pre-shaping the center section (once it's in the mask) over the side of my forefinger - before putting the mask on - makes it easy to fit it snugly to my nose/face.
I keep the mask a bit higher up on my nose and my glasses just below the tie - prevents fogging.

Since I'm working from home right now, I'm making coffee more and saving the ties as I go.

When I put a Peet's tie in, I take the TB supplied one and double up in the next mask until I save enough Peet's ties (I have masks in my car, the old style Side Effect I walk with, and some rotating through laundry).

[gathiel]

I’ve seen a few posts mentioning wanting to use a stiffer nose piece and I’m curious about those of you who desire this. For how long do you all typically wear the masks at one time? I wear mine for 8-10 hours a day and I have glasses. Every mask I tried that had a pipe cleaner or some other piece that was more stiff that the original TB mask inserts absolutely injured my nose. My nose would hurt after a couple hours and by the end of the day I would have a long red mark down the bridge of my nose and a deep, purple indentation where the metal piece primarily sits that turned into a lasting bruise a few times. The TB masks are by far the most comfortable and least fogging of all the masks I’ve tried and I exclusively wear them while I work, but even the TB V1 masks leave my nose sensitive and definitely marked up by Fridays.

[jessiew]

Ha, so I emailed Darcy and she was amazingly helpful. So we purchased the very first V1 and unfortunately the metal bridges or the twist ties did not come with the masks AND I had zero clue that the sewn in bridge actually has an opening to insert something... so now I know I can insert something to make it more form fitting. Thanks everyone for your help!

[G42]

I’ve seen a few posts mentioning wanting to use a stiffer nose piece and I’m curious about those of you who desire this. For how long do you all typically wear the masks at one time? I wear mine for 8-10 hours a day and I have glasses. Every mask I tried that had a pipe cleaner or some other piece that was more stiff that the original TB mask inserts absolutely injured my nose. My nose would hurt after a couple hours and by the end of the day I would have a long red mark down the bridge of my nose and a deep, purple indentation where the metal piece primarily sits that turned into a lasting bruise a few times. The TB masks are by far the most comfortable and least fogging of all the masks I’ve tried and I exclusively wear them while I work, but even the TB V1 masks leave my nose sensitive and definitely marked up by Fridays.

I hear you on the long days...!
Below is the link to the review I posted about the V1 masks, after I wore them in one of my hot factories for a week. Since we've eliminated anything other than urgent travel for factory work (I'm R&D, not Ops), I'm not spending weeks at a time in a plant, so my face has time to recover.

FWIW, I really like the Peet's coffee flat plastic 'ties' for the nose piece. I find that if I form it over the edge of my forefinger, before putting the mask on, I've made a pretty good shape for the bridge of my nose...and I gently pinch/form the sides along the side of my nose so that I get a decent fit. The Peet's tie is sturdy enough to hold the shape without it necessarily digging in - the 'force' is more with the elastic ear loops to my ears than the nose piece.
Everyone's face is shaped different though.

https://forums.tombihn.com/photos-vi...n-s-m-m-l.html

[gathiel]

I hear you on the long days...!
Below is the link to the review I posted about the V1 masks, after I wore them in one of my hot factories for a week. Since we've eliminated anything other than urgent travel for factory work (I'm R&D, not Ops), I'm not spending weeks at a time in a plant, so my face has time to recover.

FWIW, I really like the Peet's coffee flat plastic 'ties' for the nose piece. I find that if I form it over the edge of my forefinger, before putting the mask on, I've made a pretty good shape for the bridge of my nose...and I gently pinch/form the sides along the side of my nose so that I get a decent fit. The Peet's tie is sturdy enough to hold the shape without it necessarily digging in - the 'force' is more with the elastic ear loops to my ears than the nose piece.
Everyone's face is shaped different though.

https://forums.tombihn.com/photos-vi...n-s-m-m-l.html

It seems face shape really is what matters most. The TB ear loops are so good my ears are only a little sore at the end of the week. Day to day they don’t bother me. I am ops in the warehouse and I do quite a lot of loud talking. I think my nose sensitivity has a lot to do with that. As I talk the mask moves up and down the bridge of my nose. I think people don’t notice that movement as much as they do the under the chin slipping. The chin movement is more annoying in the moment but the nose piece moving is what causes consistent discomfort. But any mask I’ve tried that didn’t have these issues was because they weren’t tight fitting.

I prefer the smaller size TB mask. It holds itself in place better than the large even though I initially thought the extra material in the large would help the slipping issue. In actuality it slides around more because it doesn’t fit snuggly and there’s still the regular movements.

[eekim]

As @moriond said, I use the flat plastic ties from the Peet's coffee bags. Only one of my masks hasn't been able to fit it.
Usually I cut off a small bit of excess length, insert the tie, and bend over both ends to keep it secure. I find that pre-shaping the center section (once it's in the mask) over the side of my forefinger - before putting the mask on - makes it easy to fit it snugly to my nose/face.
I keep the mask a bit higher up on my nose and my glasses just below the tie - prevents fogging.

Many thanks to you and @moriond both for coming up with this hack and especially for sharing it! I have a bunch of V1 masks, which I love overall, but I had a big glasses fogging problem with them. My sister recently gifted me a V2 mask, and I noticed the fogging problem went away with the aluminum bridge, but I found it much harder to breathe through them. I was going to buy some aluminum bridges, but then I found this hack, tried it, and it works perfectly!

Thank you again!

[G42]

Many thanks to you and @moriond both for coming up with this hack and especially for sharing it! I have a bunch of V1 masks, which I love overall, but I had a big glasses fogging problem with them. My sister recently gifted me a V2 mask, and I noticed the fogging problem went away with the aluminum bridge, but I found it much harder to breathe through them. I was going to buy some aluminum bridges, but then I found this hack, tried it, and it works perfectly!

Thank you again!

I'm glad it's working out for you!
I actually still prefer the Peet's flat ties to the metal pieces in the newer TB masks...they're a bit wider and stiffer.

[bloodycolor]

i certainly need to modify my masks. you see i dont have that good of eyesight and have to wear glasses almost all the time and i like to have my headset on when i go for a walk ! with mask headsets get lose and glasses get all foggy ! in like 5 min and they become unusable. i have this color problem (according to test for color blindness) so im really uncomfy when the glasses get foggy !

[bbcamp]

I can't get Peet's coffee here, but I did have an odd piece of fairly stiff copper wire that I probably picked up off the street somewhere. I use it now in place of the original "twist ties". I admittedly don't wear the mask for more than 2-3 hours at a time, but for that time, it is comfortable and my glasses don't fog up once I get them placed correctly. (I have two pairs of glasses, and find that the bigger frames work best in avoiding the dreaded fogging.)

[moriond]

I can't get Peet's coffee here, but I did have an odd piece of fairly stiff copper wire that I probably picked up off the street somewhere. I use it now in place of the original "twist ties". I admittedly don't wear the mask for more than 2-3 hours at a time, but for that time, it is comfortable and my glasses don't fog up once I get them placed correctly. (I have two pairs of glasses, and find that the bigger frames work best in avoiding the dreaded fogging.)

I actually find that the Peet’s coffee ties work better than the inserts they have for the V2, V3, and V4 masks, because it’s more easily moldable, at the same time as vertically matching the available space. For the V2 and V3 masks, the default inserts work fine for me (remember that I don’t usually wear glasses). But for the V4 masks where I have to adjust the amount of fold-down at the top to match the shape of my face, the fit with the Peet’s coffee tie works noticeably better than the default metal insert.

I mentioned that I had previously used these on the Luminary 12 as a way of managing excess straps. Here’s a picture of how that worked excerpted from the end of a recent (end of October) post replying to someone who had gotten a Luminary. (The earlier part of the post showed how I used strap retainers on the Luminary 15)

ETA: I prefer to use the strap keepers, because they can be used on a wide variety of bags and straps of different widths to manage the extra webbing length. But if you want an alternative hack that I used before the strap keepers were available, I used to insert the plastic tie from the top of a Peet's Coffee Bag inside the webbing loop end at the end of the Luminary shoulder strap. For most other bags that I'd make the adjustment, the webbing section would be too long and thick for this to work as well.

I'm showing you the actual length that I have to roll up on a Luminary 12 (Nebulous Grey/Dawn), and I'm likely about your height and size:

This is the section of webbing that I need to roll up. The plastic tie from the Peet's Coffee bag is inserted in the end (this is the same kind of plastic tie that I used to substitute for the nose bridge of a mask in a different post. The tie exactly fits the webbing loop for the end of the shoulder strap.


Here's the rolled up section of excess webbing from the shoulder strap. You can bend the end of the plastic tie around it to secure it. This works in this case because the excess webbing length in the Luminary 12 is so short compared to the typical cases you have to deal with, and because the strap is also narrower than most cases. The webbing strap keepers work in a much larger range of cases to retain extra straps. I tend to order items that I know that I will find useful for lots of cases when I find them -- because it's such a pain to suddenly want them and find that they are out of stock!

I also use the strap keepers for other bag hacking. For example, someone asked about adding an external carrying point for a small, (non-Tom Bihn) shopping bag. I posted about Adding a Connector point to the Icon Strap in the Bag Hacks forum using the strap keepers and a triangle hook ordered from the Parts page

HTH

moriond