Grave Cleaning & Headstone Restoration in Rapid City

Removing Pine Pitch and Red Iron Clay in Rapid City

Rapid City is beautiful, but the local environment is hard on gravestones. The Ponderosa pines in cemeteries like Mountain View and Mount Calvary drop a lot of sap. This pitch lands on the headstones and hardens. It grabs onto dust and pollen until the marker is covered in black, sticky spots. You can't just wash it off; it bonds to the granite.

Then you have the soil. Rapid City sits on red clay. Rain kicks that red mud up onto the base of the monuments. The iron in the dirt dyes the stone orange. It looks like a rust line running across the bottom of the family marker. Families searching for headstone cleaning services near me call us to dissolve that hardened pine sap and to pull those deep red clay stains out of the stone.

Cleaning Hardened Pine Pitch

Pine trees drip sticky sap on the markers. It hardens into black bumps that look like tar. You can't scrape these off. A scraper just spreads the sticky mess around and pushes it deep into the engraving, making it impossible to clean.

We apply a cleaner that liquefies the pitch. It turns the hard bumps back into a soft oil. Then we wipe it off. It takes the tar off but leaves the granite polish alone.

Red Clay and Iron Stains

The Black Hills soil is full of iron. That red mud sits on the stone and stains it. It isn't just surface dirt; the iron actually stains the rock itself. You usually see a heavy orange ring right at the grass line.

Water won't move this stain. We use a rust remover designed for masonry. We apply it to the stained area. It draws the iron particles out of the stone. The orange color fades, and the natural color of the stone comes back.

Lichen on Rough Granite

A lot of the older monuments here are made of rough-cut granite. That texture is perfect for lichen. You see green and grey crusts growing all over the sides and top. These plants hold water against the stone, which freezes in the winter and causes the surface to flake off.

Wire brushes damage the stone. We spray the growth with a biocide. The spray kills the root system. The plant releases its grip on the stone. Once it is dead and loose, we scrub it off with a brush.

Hard Water Mineral Scale

Cemeteries here water the grass all summer. Sprinklers hit the stone, the sun dries it, and the minerals bake on. It leaves a white crust over the lettering. The black stone starts looking grey and dusty.

We use a mild acid to clean this. We brush it on, and it eats through the calcium deposit. We rinse it the second the scale dissolves. Acid burns granite if it sits too long. We flood the stone with water to neutralize the chemical and protect the shine.

Service Costs in Rapid City

Removing pine pitch is tedious work. We have to treat every single spot of sap individually. Cleaning iron stains out of marble takes expensive chemicals and time. We can't give you a quote without looking at the stone first. We need to see how much sap is on there and how deep the iron stains have gone.