Hey Silhouette and Cricut wood sign makers, are you having problems with your vinyl stencil peeling up the paint on your wooden sign? You know the struggle: you’ve cut your wood, sanded your wood, painted the background, applied your vinyl stencil, stenciled the sign, and you when you pull off the stencil little bits of the painted background come up, too! Today, I’m sharing a tip to help you prevent this.
How to Prevent Your Vinyl Stencil from Peeling Your Paint Up
When you pull up your vinyl stencil, pull it up against the grain of the wood. That’s it, it’s just that simple!
Let’s look at some pictures to demonstrate.
I’ve got my sign stenciled and I am ready to remove the vinyl stencil. (By the way, I prefer to use Oramask 813 stencil film.)
On the left side, I have pulled off the Oramask 813 stencil in the direction of the wood grain. 
You’ll see that several slivers of wood have pulled off onto with the stencil. I’ve circled them in the photo below.
On the other side of the sign, I’ve pulled off the Oramask 813 against the wood grain. 
From the photos, you can see that the stencil didn’t pull up the wood slivers. 
That’s it! One simple tip to prevent your vinyl stencil from pulling up the painted background when you remove it.
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That’s a great tip but it seems to address pulling up wood…not the painted letters. Will this also prevent losing some of your painted letter to the stencil? Thanks!
Hello! To prevent your stencil from pulling up your painted letters, remove the stencil while the paint is wet. (Immediately after painting.)
Wow, who knew? You did! 🙂 Thanks for the tip! 🙂 I was expecting you to say to press teh stencil against my slacks to reduce some of the stickiness before pressing it on the wood. 🙂
Happy to share!
Pulling up against the grain. Didn’t work for me. I think its more of a “the paint needs to be very very dry” kind of a thing,
Ahhh I’m so glad I found this post!! I have been making signs for over a year and run into this periodically. I’m about to have my first class and have been racking my brain to prevent it. Thanks so much for all of your amazing tips!
Happy to share!
Will this work for cotton netting or lace.
I’m sorry, I haven’t worked with either of those materials, but you could certainly try it!
How long do you let your painted wood sign dry before applying the vinyl stencil? I tried 2 days and it still peeled up. Thank you for the good tip too!
No, I immediately remove the stencil while the paint is wet.