Adhesives for tombstones

I am currently volunteering with the local cemetery office and
working on a number of issues around vandalism and vandalism
prevention. Most of the vandalism in the oldest cemetery involves
headstones being pushed over. A lot of them simply become detached
from their bases and do not break when they hit the ground.

I am of the opinion that when these stones are re-attached to their
bases, it would be best to use an adhesive that would fail with
subsequent vandalism attempts and that if a stronger adhesive were
used, there would be a risk of the stone breaking when an attempt is
made to push it over. Are there any thoughts on an appropriate
adhesive to use in this circumstance. The repair of stones which
have been broken is another issue that I do not want to deal with at
the moment.

Further, there seems to be few guidelines available for preservation
and conservation in this context. I am worried that well meaning
people will go into the cemetery and start gluing things together
and scraping algae without thought of appropriate procedures. If
anyone can help in this mater, it would also be appreciated. We are
currently planning a lecture and tour of the cemetery to raise
awareness of these preservation issues.

Don Sucha
Practicum coordinator
The Nickle Arts Museum


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 14:1
                   Distributed: Monday, June 19, 2000
                        Message Id: cdl-14-1-023
                                  ***