UPDATE: See the “definitive tutorial” post on how to make these.

I posted this video of the latest SMD stencil I made for my Moteino project. I ended up shrinking the pads by 8mil on this one, the reason being that the previous stencils I made I shrunk by 5mil and the stencil would dump too much solder paste, causing some solder bridging. See the stencil step through post for details how to make this.

I also discovered another very good method to transfer toner: silicone coated paper. I wiped a very thin layer of clear silicone on a blank sheet of paper (on half of it). After it dried I printed the mask directly to it. The iron method will give very good results, the toner will either transfer 100% or not at all. The spots where it doesn’t transfer are fixable with a thin Sharpie pen. The tool you use to spread the silicone has to be very flat and even, any unevenness will result in less perfect toner transfer.