Face down, low heat, no steam, a cloth between the iron and the canvas, then cool it under a stack of books. That is the whole method. The one thing not to do is press a hot iron directly onto the printed side, which is what an earlier version of this page recommended and which will scorch the print.
Why canvases arrive creased
Most kits ship folded flat, because a flat envelope is cheaper to post than a tube. The folds go through the primer and the printed image, and they do not simply relax out. That is why this is one of the most common complaints in the category.
It is also avoidable at the seller's end. Ledgebay canvases ship rolled in a tube rather than folded, and a rolled canvas relaxes on its own within a day or two. Customers mention this more often than anything else in our reviews, usually by comparison with a kit somebody was sent that arrived folded. So if you are here about a Ledgebay canvas, try the no-iron method first, because it is almost certainly all you need.
The no-iron method, for a rolled canvas
Unroll it and lay it face up on a flat surface. Put a clean sheet of paper over it and weight the corners with books. Leave it a day or two.
Rolled canvases carry a gentle curve, not a crease, and gravity plus a little weight is enough. If it is still curling at the edges, roll it loosely the opposite way for an hour first, then flatten it again.
Ironing a folded canvas
This is for hard fold lines, which weight alone will not remove.
- Lay a thick towel on an ironing board or a heat-safe table.
- Put the canvas face down on the towel. The printed side must be against the towel, not facing the iron.
- Set the iron to low, with the steam off. Empty the water if it drips. Moisture can lift the primer and affect how the paint takes later.
- Cover the back of the canvas with a clean, dry cloth such as a tea towel or a pillowcase. The iron should never touch the canvas directly, on either side.
- Iron in small circles, keeping the iron moving. A few seconds in any one place. Firm but not leaning on it.
- Work across the whole canvas two or three times, then stop.
- Cool it under weight. Switch the iron off, lay a board or a stack of heavy books over the canvas, and leave it at least an hour. Cooling under pressure is what sets the fibers flat, and skipping this step is why people find the creases return.
What not to do
- Do not iron the printed side. The print sits on a primed surface, and direct heat can scorch, gloss or lift it. Once the numbers are damaged the kit is much harder to finish.
- Do not use steam, and do not spray water on it. Water is the thing most likely to cause permanent damage here.
- Do not use a high setting. Low is enough. If nothing is happening on low, do a second pass rather than turning the dial up.
- Do not try to stretch the creases out by pulling the canvas over a frame. On a canvas trimmed close to the printed edge, as unframed kits usually are, there is not enough margin to stretch anyway, and pulling distorts the printed image.
If a crease will not go
Some fold lines never fully disappear, and it is better to know that than to keep ironing. Two things help.
Paint slightly more generously along the line. A second coat over the crease evens the surface and the line stops catching the light.
And once the painting is finished and cured, mounting it to a board flattens the last of it permanently. There is a walkthrough in how to frame a paint by number canvas.
Keeping it flat while you work
Store the canvas flat, or rolled in its tube, rather than folded. If you are working across several weeks, tape the corners lightly to the table or clip it to a board so it is not being handled and re-curled every session. Keep it out of direct sun and away from a radiator, both of which make the primer brittle.
Framed kits sidestep the problem entirely: the canvas arrives already stretched on a wooden frame, so there is nothing to flatten and nothing to mount when you finish. You can see those in framed paint by numbers, or the full range in the catalog.
If a canvas arrives damaged rather than merely creased, that is a fault and worth telling us about rather than working around.
