Islanders with 3-D printers have turned their high-tech hobby into a campaign against the coronavirus, by manufacturing frames for face shields to protect wearers from infection.

“There are eight of us. We’re a guild now,” said Chuck Noonan, a 3-D printing enthusiast and local businessman who began in March to recruit the network of like-minded Vineyarders that is helping equip frontline workers with protection.

Mr. Noonan is in the cleaning and restaurant supply business, which provides him with hospital-grade disinfectants to sanitize the face shields before they’re distributed. Several other printers, as they call themselves, are teachers and librarians.

“We’re a group of nerds,” said Louis Hall, a science teacher at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. “We’re like first responder nerds.”

The face shields are made in two parts, Mr. Noonan said, a frame and a sheet of transparent, submersible and cleanable plastic. The sheet is essentially the same as a school report cover, with three punched holes. The frame, a plastic tiara with three hole-punch-sized studs to attach the sheet, is what comes out of the 3-D printers.

The machines melt filaments made from polylactic acid (PLA), a plant-based, biodegradable polyester, and apply it in hundreds of thin layers to build up each frame. The whole process takes up to two hours for each one, Mr. Hall said.

“You can get roughly four or five made in a day if you have one printer,” he said.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t account for failures.

“Printers are tricky, and none of us does this for our main job.”

Still, Mr. Noonan said the group is closing in on what originally seemed a quixotic target.

“I had this initial, really insane, lofty goal of 1,000 face shields,” he said. “I think we’ll achieve that in a couple of weeks.”

In addition to the face shields, the printers are producing mask clips that pull the elastic ear loops toward the back of the wearer’s head. Mr. Hall said without the clips, ear loops can be uncomfortable for workers who must wear face masks for many hours a day.

“The loops. . . dig into the back of their heads and their ears,” he said.

Donations have provided more than enough supplies for the project, Mr. Noonan said, including additional 3-D printers. Once the crisis has eased and the extra 3-D printers are no longer needed, Mr. Noonan said, they will be donated to the high school.

As the face shields are produced and sanitized, Mr. Noonan has been providing them to recipients including the sheriff’s department, county communications center, first responders, hospice, supermarkets and other essential businesses.

“We’re now opening up to any Island organization that is opening to the public,” he said. The group is working with the Corona Stompers to distribute the shields, he added.

Mr. Noonan said it’s essential to take extraordinary precautions against the coronavirus pandemic, even on the Vineyard.

“A mask, a face shield and proper distancing, sanitation and hand washing techniques — they’ll protect you,” he said.

These measures are also necessary to protect others, Mr. Noonan added.

“If you’re not taking more than personal responsibility, you’re really doing a disservice to society,” he said.