Shop update #310 (10-11-23) Wooden Gravestones

A friend asked me if I could make a couple of wooden gravestones to use as Halloween decorations for his yard so I made 10 of them.  2 for him, 2 for me, and 6 more to try and sell on Facebook Marketplace.

I started by pullout a bunch of scrap wood that I had leftover from an old planter box.

I then cut most of it down to 20″ with my miter saw.

I made groups of 3 slats trying to roughly match up the colors.

I set the miter saw to 45° and cut off part of the top of 2 slats.

I cut the corners off of 6 more to make a total of 4 gravestones and then gave all the slats a quick sanding with 120 grit paper to get off the worst of the dirt and rough faces.

I glued and stapled braces to the backs to make a total of 10 gravestones.

I used a compass and my speed square to mark out a gothic style gravestone and then used my jigsaw to cut it out.

I put a couple of them in the laser engraver and etched RIP into them.

I added 1″ screws to the back braces for insurance and then screwed 2 feet onto the bottom of those 2 and set them up in the yard as a test.  I will be giving them to my friend tonight at Knott’s Scary Farm and will finish the rest this weekend.