We investigate the effects of pre-filled acrylic resins in highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) substrates on the electrical and interfacial surface characteristics of multilayer films composed of a hexagonal V2O3 crystalline phase created by a sol-gel dip-coating process. The films on the resin-embedded HOPG substrates had mud-like shrinkage crack patterns along the grain boundary, with an exfoliated ratio of 0.79%, a thickness increase of 36.79% and a grain size decrease of 21.22%, compared with those of the non-impregnated sample, without changing the intrinsic electrical properties of HOPG. We attribute these results mainly to the use of resins containing hydroxyl groups, which relieve non-uniform drying stresses of the films. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.