Thread: Brand your props for anti-theft easy ID recovery

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My first how-to, so be kind.

After we've spent so much time and money making our props wouldn't you want to have a better chance of getting them back if lost (blown away) or stolen. I used branding irons made for steak or chicken cooked on a grill and made a branding iron to mark my styrofoam tombstones. You could paint your name and address on a prop, but if someone stole it to use as their own they could easily paint over your paint. I wanted to etch my contact info INTO the prop but didn't want to take the time to do it with a dremel tool. I think that a thief may (..again MAY) think twice it they see your name embedded in the prop.

I bought 2 Norpro BBQ Brands from amazon.com Amazon.com: Norpro BBQ Branding Iron: Kitchen & Dining they cost $14.37. They come with a long handled brand with a plate and approx 54 letters and spacers (no numbers). The letters are 3/8" tall. The branding plate has 2 lines and each line holds 9 to 10 letters. It comes with a "U" shaped clip that is supposed to keep the letters in place. Since I was going to keep these as prop brands and since you can't use the clip if you have 10 letters on a line, I modified the branding plate to keep the letters in place.



After picking what I wanted the brand to say and making sure it fit, I used brackets screwed on to each side to keep the letters in place. The branding plate is aluminum and drilled easily. I used a very small drill bit, drilled the 2 holes on each side then used a 1/8" drill bit and made the holes larger. I attached one bracket then loaded the letters in.







Unfortunately there are no numbers in the set, but luckily for me I could use the "I" for 1 and modified the "H" to make a 4 by using a dremel tool and lake a leg off the H.



Use a mirror to check to make sure the letters are in the reverse way.


Then attach the other side bracket so the letter don't fall out.

Apply heat, you could put this in a hot grill like they say to do for use on food, or use a plumbing torch. Normal precautions for working with fire and melting styrofoam apply.



You can see the several attempts to get it right. Too hot and it melted too much, but you could do several tombstones without having to reheat. Also shows how it did on wood.







I had to shorten the name of my town so it would fit on the line. Hope this helps. PM me if you have any questions.

I just branded/marked 25 tombstones in under 10 minutes. I reheated the branding iron after every 7 tombstone or so. In the beginning a quick 1/2 second touch was enough to imprint the brand toward the 7th one a 1 second touch was enough. After I was done I burnt off the foam residue from the branding iron.

It fits perfectly on the bottom of 2" thick foam.

I like this idea. We have a problem with decoration thefts and vandalism in our area. Good job on your first Step-by-Step!

Wow thanks for sharing this!

Pretty neat. I wouldnt have thought of using a food branding iron. To be honest I didnt even know they existed, but hey, if you have a house of picky eaters, branding the different grades could be useful. Deffinitely would be useful for a high crime area. Luckily I havent had to deal with that type of stuff, but the same method could be easily used if I ever had to "mass produce" anything, easy to heat, brand, move on to the next one. Thanks for sharing!

I bought one of those branding irons at Harbor Freight. It was a fathers day present from the dogs, Chopper and VuDu, so that their "Dad" could brand their name in their barbequed steaks. (No, they're not spoiled.) But now I can use it to mark my props, too. Thanks for the great idea, spinach!

Good thinking! This is a great way to keep track of my outside decorations. Another thing added to the ta-do list.

That's a great idea.

I'm an amateur radio operator, so I'm going to put my call sign on all my props. But I can see the advantage of having an address on it - much easier to find where it belongs if it "wanders" out of the yard!

So far, I don't have a problem w/theft or vandalism on our street. But then I don't usually put most of my things out until the day of or night before.

I say if they wanna steal it, let 'em have it. They can scrape the brand off foam, paint over it on wood, cut it out or off of other things etc.

I just assume that if one is a thief of any sort one doesn't really care if there's a serial number or mark or what have you. If someone wants your property for free, whether it's a car or a Halloween prop, they're gonna take it regardless of any markings.

That said, I think it's a good idea if you're making things to sell on Ebay or Etsy or wherever. Good way to get your "brand" out there (pun intended)!

I write in magic marker " Stolen from Frightmares home haunt and my address!