Thread: How do you make your tombstones stay up?

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I live in Washington and it's usually pretty windy. Ive used BBQ skewers and wire but the wire bends and the skewers break. Your Idea's and ways to make your tombstones stay up?

EDIT: If anyone has pictures that would be great!

2 holes up through the middle of the tombstone and large, thick dowels staked into the ground for the tombstone to go over.

I use several Stakes: Wooden Dowels, Metal Rods & Plastic Stakes

Wooden Dowel or Metal Rod: Insert a PVC tube into the foam. Put a stake in the ground and slide the pvc over it. If your foam is not large enough to insert a PVC tube, I use "C" brackets (Used to hold wires, plumbing to a wall or stud).

I usually use only one stake, but I know people that use two, they do this to prevent them from turning.

Plastic Stakes: If your tombstane has a base, you can drill a hole in the base and use the plastic stake to hold it down. The stakes are available at home depot, gardening area.


I hope this helps

Bamboo stakes from Home Depot cut to the height of the tombstone so they're a little below it once they're stuck in the ground. I glued outdoor velcro strips to the back of the tombstone and then used the other side of the strip to anchor it to the bamboo. A lot of people here like to glue PVC pipes to the back of the tombstone with Liquid Nails and slide that over rebar in the ground but that makes the tombstones thicker and space is always an issue for me. Also I don't have a good tool to cut rebar easily.

Terra has an excellent tutorial on this. click here:

http://www.halloweenforum.com/member...o-through.html

Originally Posted by Xane

Bamboo stakes from Home Depot cut to the height of the tombstone so they're a little below it once they're stuck in the ground. I glued outdoor velcro strips to the back of the tombstone and then used the other side of the strip to anchor it to the bamboo. A lot of people here like to glue PVC pipes to the back of the tombstone with Liquid Nails and slide that over rebar in the ground but that makes the tombstones thicker and space is always an issue for me. Also I don't have a good tool to cut rebar easily.

"rebar" always makes me shake my head.....it's a steel bar! how does one cut it with household tools????


I have several simple styrafoam tombstones, some I made and some I just bought from Walgreens.
All I did was get some 1/2" pvc pipe from home depot. cut off 2 pieces (maybe 3 inches long) with a hand held rechargable circular saw and hot glued it to the back of my tombstone.
Then I got some tomato stakes (also from homedepot).
They come in wood, bamboo and some kind of hollow metal thing.
They all work well.
Cut them into a few feet sections.
Pound them into the ground with a hammer and then slide your tombstones over the two stakes.

stakes and pvc should only cost a few bucks for several tombstones.
ask Home depot to cut the pvc in half if you don't have a truck (they come in 8 ft pieces for about 90cents).
if you don't have a circular saw you can always just use a hand saw.

I have used rebar for years now. I buy the small ones, 18" to 24", ground can be hard in Oklahoma so it is easier to pound into the ground with a hammer, and use pvc on the back of tombstone

I also use rebar that I buy in the pre-cut smaller sizes.
But I have mostly concrete tombstones and the rebar is the ONLY thing that will hold them up. I had a problem coming home to styrofoam tombstones not in my yard because of the wind so I went with making the concrete variety.

Then again my concrete ones don't blow down all that often do to their weight.

I usually use shorter pieces of rebar or dowling, and set it over pvc

We use rebar as well. Our stones are foam so we just have holes bored out in the bottoms and they slide right over it. Works great for us in Iowa because we can hammer it right in the ground no matter what the condition of it and then slide them right over the top. Works great for us and it's pretty cheap.