Otho Cemetery Restoration 1996

Repaired and/or powerwashed 205 items.   Here are a few samples.

2B  Upright style marble marker found laying on the ground....broken off at the bottom.   After digging around a little I could find no sign of the original base.   First I dug the marker out of the ground and laid the it on a couple of 2 X 4 pieces and powerwashed both sides.   After it dried I formed up a small foundation   (  2A ) about 3" bigger than the marker and about 10" deep....lined up the form with the row, shoveled in about 4" of cement and then and braced up the marker vertical with 1 X 4s....then carefully scooped in the rest of the cement,  trying not to get cement on the marble.    Used plenty of cement in the mix for easy troweling on the top....when the cement stiffened I used an edger and a small trowel to round the corners down.   After the cement  hardened a day or two the form boards and bracing were removed and backfilled with black dirt.

36B  Upright tree style cement monument....found badly leaning.   This piece is actually about 5' long with about 3' above ground and another 2' sunk into soil.   Since I had no hoist available to actually lift it out I just dug down and removed the soil from in front of the monument.   Then I pushed it forward to vertical, and that got it pretty straight with the row,  So I braced it up with a 2 X 4 and filled in behind it and around with cement and pea rock, up to about 3 inches from ground level....and then covered that with dirt around the bottom.  36A

38B  Tall skinny monument found broken off.   Pretty clean break and the base was sitting nice and straight so this is a job for epoxy.   This you get from Granite City Tool Company....it come in two cans and you mix what you need.   38A shows a simple clamping device I made from 2 X 4s,  long galvanized bolts and some 1 X 6s going vertical.   It is clamped onto the upright bottom piece,  then epoxy the joint and lower the top piece down.   Let harden for several days ( I put some plastic cut from softener salt bags over the 2 x 4s so they wouldn't stain the granite. )  and then remove the clamps and use grey caulk to fill in the remaining voids around the seam.

26B  Small upright marble marker, broken off.   26A  Epoxied top piece back on and powerwashed.

54B  Upright marble obelisk quite dirty.   54A  After a good powerwashing....check the base out!

24B  Upright marble,  broken and tipping.   24A   Leveled the small footing...used patching cement in the slotted top to secure the upright piece vertical.   Used the clamps to epoxy the top piece back.

76B   Small marble upright.    76A  Powerwashed and quite a bit cleaner,  but still some nasty stains....some come out better than others.

74B  Broken marble upright found flush in ground.         74A   Powerwashed,  used epoxy and patching cement to join broken pieces,  reset in a small foundation.....a small level comes in handy for this type of work. 

40B   Small marble upright baby marker found with no base.   40A  Reset in new cement...notice how the foundation edges are rounded off.   This will help keep the corners from getting broken off