Attaching brass mounting rods to crumbly drywall

So we have an upcoming exhibit on kayaks and have various other objects that we are mounting around the kayaks. We plan on attaching a harpoon as well as a paddle to the wall behind the kayak and I have created the mounts out of brass rod. I have had to mount various other things on these walls and know from experience that the drywall is crumbly and difficult to work with. We even mounted a panel on one of the walls using a anchor and the anchor fell right out before we even mounted the panel. I was curious if there was a better anchor or method of securing objects to a wall with poor quality drywall. Any tips would help

Natalie Wadle, Collections and Exhibit Specialist
Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository
215 Mission Rd, Suite 101
Kodiak, AK 99615
907-486-7004
natalie@alutiiqmuseum.org


Discovering the Past Exploring Culture  Awakening Pride  The Alutiiq Museum
Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums

Hi Natalie,

The best anchor I have found for use in drywall is what has come to be known as a zip-toggle or Snaptoggle. They are easy to use, are rated to hold up a lot of weight, and best of all, once installed, the metal anchor is held firmly to the back side of the drywall and you can take the screw in and out as many times as you please. http://www.toggler.com/products/snaptoggle/overview.php

The issue of poor-quality drywall may call for other measures. you will need a foot on the mount rod that is of sufficient size to adequately spread the load and keep it from indenting the surface. If you have a spare piece of the drywall, you could use to set up a test wall where you could try out ideas before actual installation. This would give you very real information that would make your installation go much more quickly. Making full sized paper templates of the objects and the post locations can also save a lot of grief at install.

Please let me know if you have other questions and we can try to find some answers for you.

Jamie Hascall
Craftsman, Trainer, Consultant
Mountmakingfocus.com
jamie@mountmakingfocus.com
Seattle, WA
206-954-4141

You can also try using a piece of plywood screwed the the studs to span the area of bad drywall. Your mounts can then be attached to the plywood. If it's patched and painted the same color as the walls it usually doesn't look that bad.