Advanced organic chemistry stencil hexagon for students

The stencil is printed with transparent PETG, the best results were obtained by lowering the print speed to 60% and cleaning the nozzle before and after every print on a Prusa Mini+ with IS. In the following section, a short description of the process of designing the stencil is provided.

The stencil was designed using ChemDraw to create the .svg file:

1. To obtain suitable stencils, ChemDraw needs settings that are different from the standard. Navigate to File > Document Settings > Drawing and use the settings from the illustration below. The line width can be adjusted for different types of pencils. Below, you can see the line width used for pens (for pencils, we used 0.051 cm)
   
    
2. Next, fill the stencil with the desired structures. Remember that structures inside a circle or similar structures (e.g., a cyclohexane-ring) will not be visible in the finished stencil. If structures inside ring-like structures are needed, you should put them next to the ring-like structure. See the cyclohexane and the double bonds next to it, which form a phenyl ring in the illustration below. When finished, save the stencil as a svg file.

To create a 3D-model from the svg file, Fusion360 was used:

1. Open a new Project in Fusion360. Import the svg file (exported from ChemDraw) via insert > insert svg.
2. This will open up a sketch. Before finishing the sketch or clicking anywhere else, scale the stencil to the desired size. With the settings from ChemDraw, scaling by 1.75 results in a practical size.
   
3. Now, finish the sketch. Select the area that needs to be extruded and click on extrude.
4. The thickness should be in the range between 0.6 mm and 1.0 mm, a crucial technical detail to ensure the stencil is both sturdy and user-friendly. Extrude the stencil with this in mind.
5. If you want to have any special configurations, such as holes for stapling, add them now. In this case, these holes were added according to ISO 838. 
6. On the left side of your screen, click on the arrow beside “Bodies”. Right-click the stencil and click on “save as mesh”. Choose either the 3mf or the stl format and save.
   
   This project was developed in the course of a bachelor's thesis by Niklas P. Schmidt.