Thread: I am Tired of wind killing my graveyard Tombstones.

Tweet

Does the wind pretty much always blow from the same direction? It sure seems to do that here. If this be the case point the thin side of the "stone" facing the wind and eliminate much of nature's leverage.
"Go with the flow"!

I just do the rebar and some thin galvanized wire pushed through the foam. The wire is small and unobtrusive. If you incorporate it into the stones when you make them you can paint right over it. I ddn't have one stone go down this year at all and we had the Halloween Blizzard here in the Northeast.

So I have to agree with shockwave on this although I don't use dowels since I already had the rebar.

I've always had success with using Liquid Nails Construction Adhesive to attach a length of 1/2" PVC pipe to the back of the tombstone. Then just slide it over some rebar hammered into the ground.
The tombstone doesn't even need to be thick. I use the same method on Dollar Tree stones with no problems.

I am slowly converting all my stones to the pvc and rebar style supports. I have been using the cheap white styrofoam sheet to add thickness to the backs of teh stones so i can embed the pvc pipe and it works ok. I use screws and glue to hold the sheet tot eh stone and i go back and cover the screws with some lind of spackle or caulk. Because i am mostly working with store bought stones i'm going for the cheapest fix possible so i use a lot of left over materials, or stuff i find for free. Eventually i replace store bought stones with homemade as the store bought stuff gets too broken to keep fixing.

That is exactly what we did, we picked up 3 tombstones at a garage sale during the summer for $10.00. We re-worked them to make them thicker and more distressed, used a router to notch the PVC groove and glued the PVC pieces in place with caulking. Ours turned out pretty well, they were cheap, and I like that we recylced materials that may have ended up in a landfill!! It is a win, win really! I used the Grim Reaper tombstone as an "insert" to make up the really tall one, worked pieces of construction foam around the insert, it is over 4ft tall.

I glue 1/2"-3/4" plywood to the back to each tombstone (the entire back surface is plywood). I then attach two 14" sections of 1/2" PVC to the plywood (double screwed at the top and metal strapped at the bottom). 16" pieces of 3/8" rebar are pounded halfway into the ground and the tombstone PVC is then slid over the top of them.

It may be overkill, but when I put my tombstones out Oct 1st, they stay up and in place until Nov 1st when I decide to take them down. Last year (2010) we had 30-40 mph winds with 70 mph gusts for 3 days straight and not one tombstone was knocked over or damaged. I even had a 6" dia branch approx 10' long break off the tree, land on top of one of the stones and only had a minor dent put in the corner of the foam thanks to the plywood backing.