I have an engraved stone that I plan on placing in the Memorial Garden of my church grounds. How can I make this stone secure (approx 7" tall and 12" wide & 4" deep). I , of course, don’t want it picked up and walked off with.
Reported for forum change.
On the grounds? Do you have the agreement and cooperation of the property owners?
If this is on open land, you only choices are:
- A 24 hour guard.
- Make it so large that it would be very difficult to steal. You could also make very tall base and bury most of the base deep, but if it’s a thin base, it might be possible to snap off the top and leave the base in the ground.
If you could mount the item on the wall of a building, you might be able to prevent a theft, in the sense that removing it might also mean destroying it or the wall.
But IMO, you simply can’t prevent theft or vandalism. That’s the reason important government monuments are constantly guarded.
How are you at enslaving the will of skeleton warriors?
Off to General Questions, I think.
My suggestions would be:
1)Just put it there and assume it won’t get stolen.
2)Keep it for yourself and get something else symbolic to put there or have a replica made for the garden.
3)If it MUST be there and it CAN’T be stolen, dig up the ground, about a foot deep and wider then the base of the monument, fill it with concrete up to about 3 inches below grade and set the stone in that, then backfill it. Even better would be to drill some holes in the bottom of the monument at opposing 45 degree angles and put some rebar in it so it locks into the concrete and can’t be pulled or knocked off. If you do that, it won’t have to be pushed in or set quite as deep and should be fairly solid.
If you have any friends that are ‘good’ with concrete (anyone that does patios or even fences), this should be a pretty easy project.
Since there isn’t one single correct answer, and the answers here will be opinions, I"ve moved this from General Questions to IMHO.
samclem, Moderator
Putting an engraved stone that small on the ground is begging for it to get stolen. Per some other suggestions you need to bind it to something (bolts, rebar etc) that can then be embedded in concrete, and from your description the stone is kind of small to have that amount of penetrative work safely done to it.
Billy the Kid’s tombstone kept getting stolen by high-school pranksters and such, so they finally put a cage around it. You can see it in this photo. Not sure how desirable this would be.
Missed the Edit window: Just wigged to the fact we’re talking inches for the stone and not feet. A barred cage would probably completely destroy the desired aesthetic effect.