How to Spot Signs of Damage to Traditional Headstone Ceramic Photos

Adding ceramic headstone photos to your choice of headstone, plaque, or memorial bench is a wonderful way to honour the memory of your loved one that has passed. This cameo portrait personalises the memorial and is a wonderful legacy for future generations of your family to visit, tend and cherish.

The process of choosing a special photo for your memorial headstone is not difficult. However, it will require a bit of thought, discussion and some decision-making on the part of close family members. Once you have the perfect high-resolution photo, you can pass it along to the Sanctuary Memorials team to transfer your headstone photos onto the ceramic mount.

How Ceramic Headstone Photos Are Made

We use the finest ceramic clay and bake the mount you have chosen in a kiln so that the ceramic photo plaque is protected from the elements for many years. Once this process is complete, we add the ceramic headstone photos to your choice of memorial stone, plaque or bench using a silicone caulk that is weatherproof.

Do Ceramic Headstone Photos Get Damaged?

Ceramic headstone photos are permanent memorials designed to withstand all kinds of weather conditions, and depending on where the headstone is placed, this can include rain, hail, snow, intense heat and high winds. These are generally available in an oval shape, scroll, decorative, heart or book shape.

Like any item that spends its life outside over time, the elements will inevitably take their toll, and often times the water that groundskeepers use to tend the gardens where your ceramic headstone photos are placed can damage traditional headstone ceramic photos.

So how can you spot whether your headstone ceramic photos are getting damaged?

Signs of Damage

If you can check in at your loved one’s resting place regularly, you should be able to spot early signs of damage to your traditional ceramic headstone photos and deal with them relatively easily.

Calcium Build-Up

The most common sign of damage on ceramic gravestone photos is calcium buildup. This can be caused by the gardening processes used by groundskeepers, and if this is the case, you will be able to spot it with a quick close-up look.

Calcium buildup can make your ceramic gravestone photos look kind of scuffed up or foggy across the surface.

Fixing Calcium Build Up

If you have spotted signs of damage due to calcium buildup, you can address these with a razor blade and a soft chamois or microfibre cloth. Lightly – very lightly – glide the razor edge over the calcium build-up, being careful not to scratch the surface of the ceramic. The residue should come away as dust; once the build-up has been removed, use the cloth to rub the surface clean.

Disintegrating Silicone Caulk

If the sealant used to fix your ceramic headstone photos to the headstone begins to disintegrate, you will be able to spot this damage by looking for holes or gaps in the seal where the ceramic photo is mounted to the headstone, plaque or bench.

Fixing Silicone Seals

These holes or gaps can be easily mended with over-the-counter silicone caulk. However, it pays to check in with your headstone provider so that you can match the type exactly. This can also get messy, so if you know someone who uses this type of product in the course of their work, ask them for help.

Damage To Frames

If you opt for a bronze frame for your ceramic headstone photos, you may spot damage to the frame as discolouration or dullness that starts in spots and spreads on the frame. If you have a ceramic frame, you may notice moss or mould if you leave it too long between visits.

Repairing Damage to Frames

These first signs of damage to frames can usually be attended to with a soft cloth and some hot soapy water; you could take a thermos flask along with some heated water and give the frame a gentle but firm rub down if you can’t shift moss with a cloth try bringing a toothbrush along.

Get In Touch

If you have spotted damage to your traditional headstone ceramic photos and you are not confident to try and stop the damage from progressing, please get in touch.

At Sanctuary Memorials, we are always here to help you with your headstone, memorial plaque, and bench needs.