Easy 3D Print Stencil

It is really easy to design and 3D print your own stencil using Tinkercad. Attached, I have a simple stencil sampler and an alphabet stencil.

Instructable 328

Tinkercad - for making your own stencil or altering mine

3D Printer

Filament

You can just use a square or rectangle for the base but I think it looks and feels a little nicer if you round the corners. This is really easy using the MetaFillet shape that is under the Shape Generators > All on the right.

To start, put out a rectangle that is .8mm thick. This will make the stencil 4 layers thick, you can go thicker if you want, but I thought this was pretty good. Make it fairly sturdy without using up a lot of filament or time.

Once you have your rectangle (you can resize it later if need be), line it up with each corner. I use the Align function and did each corner one at a time.

Group them as you go and you'll have your base.

This is where you can do whatever you'd like. Either take simple shapes from the menu on the right (I did heart and star), combine shapes to make new images (crown, pawprint, and altered letter), or import your own (car).

Line them up on your stencil and resize the base if you need to. Make sure all the images are holes and group the whole thing to make a stencil.

If you want to make letter stencils, you'll need to do some altering on some of the letters such as A, D, O, anything with a hole in it. Remember you can't have anything just floating in the stencil. Everything must connect to each other.

Please copy my design in Tinkercad and use the letters and images as you'd like.

This is really straightforward to print. Bring it into your slicer of choice and print away! You can make it thicker here if you decide it's too thin.

Also, remember to be careful taking it off the bed. Since it is thin it can bend and snap easily when first getting it off.

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