Thread: Ground stakes for tombstones?

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Hi all,

Every year I do a cemetery in my yard, using many store bought tombstones. This year I am tempted not to do it because I'm so sick of struggling with those cheap little plastic stakes that come with them. They seem to break the minute I try to set them up. (The ground here in AZ is pretty dry & hard) Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I could use? I have about 20 tombstones and no stakes! Thanks for your help.

Where I live we have about 3-4 inches of soil we can drive stakes into. I use dowels or rebar, pound it into the ground, and then use tie wraps to hold them in place... We get some helacious winds in October, and no matter how sturdy the tombstone, it still falls over without support. Just paint the dowels and tie wrap to match the tombstone, and if you can conceal the tie wrap with a little moss, no one will ever see it!!!

I am actually going to touchup all the gravestones at my house tonight... new tie wraps requires new paint! (you can use the little bottles of acrylic paint from walmart to mix and match the colors on your graves!!

We are always on a budget, so we are always trying to do things as cheaply and effectively as possible!!

How do you attach the tombstone to the dowel with the tie wrap? Can you post a pic? I'm sorry, I'm just not picturing how you do it. Thanks so much for your help.

Foam glue 1/4 - 1/2 Plywood on the back of the stones, Masonry grade stakes behind the stones, screw the stakes to the plywood. Haven't had one blow over in 2 years and we get some windy days...

HTH,
RandalB

Originally Posted by RandalB

Foam glue 1/4 - 1/2 Plywood on the back of the stones, Masonry grade stakes behind the stones, screw the stakes to the plywood. Haven't had one blow over in 2 years and we get some windy days...

HTH,
RandalB

That's a pretty god idea. Hadn't heard of that one. We use a length of rebar as well. I take an awl or long sharp nail and place 4 small holes in the tombstone; two at the top and and two towards the bottom, about an inch or so apart. I use black wire ties and insert them into the holes and then wrap them around the rebar. It works very well.

The tombstones I bought last year had those crappy plastic stakes with them also. I couldn't imagine they would stand up to much wind so I decided to go another route. I don't remember who the haunter was but I remember seeing something where a guy had used wooden stakes and zip ties, or maybe it was twine? I can't remember exactly.

What I did was take some wooden grade stakes that you can buy from Lowe's. They came in a bundle of 18 or something and are about 18" or 24" long, sorry my memory is crap. You could do the same thing with left over 1x2's, or 2x2's or just about any small dimensional lumber I just went the route of the stakes last year because I was lazy. Anyhow what I remember doing was drilling holes through the sides of the stakes before attaching them to the backs of the tombstones with adhesive. Then I took another stake and drove that one into the ground. Then I used the zip tie to fasten the two stakes together. Oh, yeah I painted the stakes black before attaching them, not that it really matters if they will only be viewed from the front.

It worked out pretty nicely despite several windstorms that sent several other neighbors tombstones flying about the neighborhood. The only problem is this year I'm planning on having ToT's walk into the yard so my tombstones will be visible from the backside which will reveal the black stakes.

I am hard core. I drive rebar into the ground with a sledge hammer. I ues a hot knife to cut out an inch wide 7even inches high piece out of the back. I use gorilla glue to glue a piece of pvc into the gloove. I then cut the piece I took out and gue in over the pvc so it blends in. You can put the pvc over the rebar in the ground. it holds up real nice.

I just bought those wooden stakes at Lowes and I am going to glue them on and 'sew' them on with fishing line I think but I am still afraid this foam is going to tear if the wind gets up.

You can also get metal skewers from Walmart, in the cooking utensils section, like 4 for a dollar, they are like 14 inches, drive them into the ground toward the toom stone and run a line either across the top of, or in my case since I have foam ones, through to anchor.

fastest, cheapest and most effective thing Ive tried is hot glueing pvc onto the back of the tombstone then sliding it over rebar or wooden dowels that I hammered into the ground...

Newbie haunter, that is what I do, I have glued the pvc to the back of the tombstone and used either rebar or dowling pounded into the ground, seems to hold up well to wind.I pained the pvc black to not show so much