Repairing a Broken Headstone or Monument

Monument refurbishment can sometimes be more than just broken stone. Sometimes it is better to go to a professional to get a full refurbishment, although if it is just a broken headstone that needs repairing, you may be able to complete this yourself.

There are a few different ways to repair a broken or damaged headstone. Many different companies have kits and packages to allow you to make these repairs yourself, and everyone’s methods are different. Here is an example of one company’s instructions to use their kit in order to repair a broken gravestone or monument.

You may think that working on a headstone on its side would be the easiest, but you actually want to make sure it is erected and standing up straight. Also gather the pieces you are wishing to reattach. Sometimes you may find that small pieces are missing, don’t worry – there are ways to fix this as well.

With something as simple as a regular wire brush, you will want to vigorously brush the surface areas that you will be binding together. This is to remove any loose debris or dirt that could cause the adhesive not to hold. A clean surface is extremely important in this process.

In many cases, the adhesive is made up of two different materials, epoxy and a hardener. Make sure you read the direction carefully or speak to the person providing you with this material, as every kit may be a bit different and have different methods. There is typically a larger proportion of epoxy to the proportion of hardener that you use (2 -1). It is also very important that you mix the two materials together extremely well. There should be a slight color difference in them, so it is best to mix it until you can no longer notice both colors.

The next step to making your adhesive match your headstone is to add pigment minerals to it. Depending on the color of stone you have, you may need to mix a couple different pigments together with the adhesive mix to get the right coloring. Again you want to make sure that it is fully mixed.

Next you will want to take a paint brush to apply a base amount to the main headstone as well as the piece you are wishing to reattach. The trick here is to make sure you get it all down in all the crevices and between all the bumps so the entire surface is covered and damped by this adhesive mixture. It is very important that you prime both surfaces completely with this mix.

The next step, using a putty knife, you will want to take a larger portion of this thick mix to apply to the base of the headstone, where you are replacing the piece. This is to make sure there is a large amount of putty to hold the stones together. It also can help to fill in the spaces from any missing smaller pieces that you may no longer have.

Once you have the thick layer on the base, reattach the missing piece by lining it up and making sure it is in the proper place you would like. Then aggressively add pressure by pushing the piece into the base. Don’t worry if excess putty squeezes out of the sides of the crack, you can always clean this up afterwards. You want to make sure you put a lot of pressure at this part so it continues to push the putty into the cracks and small holes/pores in the stone.

Once the stones are set in place, you can use your putty knife to then scrape off any excess putty that has squeezed outside of the crack.

If there are additional small pieces missing around where you have bound these two stones back together, you can use your additional putty and knife to fill in these spaces.

Afterwards you will need to do some cleaning up to please the eye. To first clean up and smooth over the additional excess putty you can use a paper towel with a dab of alcohol on it and gently clean up these edges.

If you find that your putty coloring does not match up very well, you can sometimes fix this by grabbing some addition debris from another area of the stone using your wire brush again, and then with a small amount of the alcohol on a gloved finger, lightly dab/rub this debris over the areas that need color improvements.

Your headstone or monument should be in a much better condition and the adhesive should not take very long to harden. Although, do be careful around it, as it may still be slightly vulnerable at the seams of where it was cracked.

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