DIY Cracked TV Repair With Vinyl

Friday, August 16, 2024

DIY Cracked TV Repair With Vinyl

Have you ever had a TV go out because of the light strip? Everything else works perfectly; power, sound, etc, but the picture can't show just because there isn't any lighting? That's what happened to this TV that used to belong to my parents. They went ahead and purchased a new TV and this one was sitting to the side waiting for recycling. I decided that it can't be too hard to replace the light strip, right?

Well yes and no. It's not really that hard, though definitely a pain in the butt. Unfortunately during the process I cracked the screen on the upper right corner!!! Not one to give up, especially after I had spent an entire evening getting the damn thing apart (and back together), I decided to come up with a DIY fix. Read on to see how I used my Cicut cutting machine to make a vinyl sticker:

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Here is the TV after I got it back together, with the crack in the upper corner of the screen. These photos show how it looks when the TV is turned off.

Note: The fix I'm sharing here only works if the crack in question is on the edges of the screen. If your screen is cracked in the middle then you are just going to have to replace the screen or the TV altogether. Luckily I didn't break it that badly!

And this picture shows the splotch when turned on. It's not super huge, and maybe some people wouldn't mind at all, but for me it's the kind of thing that would bug me every time I looked at the screen!

After measuring the damaged area, I used Cricut Design Space to play around with a shape that would look nice on the TV and also hide the blemish. It was a little difficult, but eventually I figured a sort of frame shape with a bit of trailing ivy would work.

Note: The crack that is pictured here is smaller than the vinyl shapes that I ended up using. That's because when I first applied the vinyl I ended up with bumps that I couldn't smooth out. When I attempted to remove the bumpy vinyl, I cracked the TV further! It was such a frustrating process! I ended up cutting just the ivy section a little bigger and the crack was covered completely. But in case you make an attempt at a similar project learn from me - be really careful to apply the vinyl smoothly the first time as pulling it up may cause further damage to an already vulnerable surface.

Here are the shapes that I came up with; two corner pieces and then the ivy. I decided to use two corners (even though there was only one crack) to give balance to the design and that ivy trail covers the part of the crack that sticks out towards the middle of the screen.

In this photo the screen is showing a you tube selection - the text isn't covered so much that it causes confusion for the viewer.

Here is how the vinyl looks on a mostly dark screen.

Need a good show to get into? Check out Magnificent Century on you tube (English subtitles). This Turkish production is a historical drama featuring the Ottoman empire and centers around Hurrem's rise from Ruthenian peasant to captured slave to the legal wife of Sultan Suleman. To be fair, the show is actually about Sultan Suleman's life from the time he took the throne until his death, but Hurrem is way more interesting 😄

Here is a link to a you tube page with all 139 Magnificent Century episodes.

Here is a link to the historical background of Hurrem.

And here is a shot of how the vinyl worked out with subtitles in action.

And here is how the TV looks when not in use. I think it was a perfect fix and loved how it turned out. My kids and husband though disagree, they think I should have just left it alone. It's a good thing I'm the only one who watches anything in this part of the house I guess 😆

And that's how I 'repaired' my cracked TV screen with vinyl.

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I hope you enjoyed this how-to post, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

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