Been buiding them for years for fun. Just remember, if you ask a funeral director, there is no law against building your own and using it. Rockler.com has plans to build your own. I have a set and it's not that hard to do.
I just watched the segment on PBS about Home Funerals.
I'd like to start early on the pine box. We both weigh under 170 lbs and I don't forsee a problem with 1x lumber. Dont' want the thing coming apart when it goes to the cememtery. Any suggestions?
Also, it is hot here in Texas and we may need to take a little extra precaution to keep the smell down for a couple of days until the plot is ready. Maybe make a spray bottle full of purcel to spray over the body and in the orifices? Any suggestions?
Sherman
If you're handy with a router you could get fancy and make the parts with dovetailed joints like this one:
For those who didn't have a prior need to know, a traditional Jewish coffin is supposed to have no metal parts in it so that it can readily decompose completely to fulfil that "dust to dust" admonition.
Some of the "kosher caskets" I've seen have several large holes through their bottoms to permit easy entry of moisture and help speed their contents back to the earth.
Jeff
You may want to start with a phone call or two to local authorities. They may have specifications for coffins. You may also want to ask about burial arrangements and what may be required there. You will need to know who to contact and what paper work may be needed at various points in the process.
I would not be surprised if you find some of this information difficult to find out. You will likely get the usual, go see the funeral home director as an answer. However I believe this information is a matter of public record and they must give it to you. The mechanical parts like making the box are likely to be the easiest part, especially at a time when your thoughts will be directed other ways. You will want to have those other details worked out ahead of time as much as possible and at least know what they will be.
Federal law, since 1994, states that funeral homes must accept the casket, without charging you a handling fee or manipulating their prices in any way to penalize you.
Some years ago, I toured an old Victorian mansion which had been turned into a historical museum. They had a funeral table, since funerals were done at home in those days. As I recall, the coffin was set into a recess which held ice, to slow decomposition. You might consider building ice compartments into the walls or bottom your coffin, allowing for drainage as it melts, of course. Or a network of pipes on the bottom; hook the garden hose to an inlet sticking through the wall of the coffin, run cold water through it, and have a discharge hose taking water from the outlet at the other end.
What is purcel, some type of perfume? The Victorians used flowers in season to mask any odor; not sure what they did in winter. You could get some incense sticks at Spencer Gifts.
Paul
FWIW, I believe that here in Oklahoma you have to bury an unembalmed body within 24 hours. Don't quote me on that, it comes from memory of what somebody told me about 30 years ago.
Bill Gill
I would hope that would be the case everywhere, but I would not be surprised if they got some laws passed in some areas that do require commercial version or some feature that the individual can't easily provide, or as some such laws add, require some fee (roughly equal to the total cost) be paid to the funeral director even if they don't provide any service or product.
I'll accept that is true, but the respose I received on that from a funeral director I know pretty well was, "Yes, but we still have the right to refuse to do business with someone for any one of a number of reasons."
Jeff
So why bother with a funeral home? Get the corpse in the ground quick enough and embalming isn't required either.
Of course, there is still that thing about some cemetaries requiring a concrete vault for the coffin...answer is to use a different cemetary.
Now if we could just get rid of silly municipal laws requiring burial in a cemetary...
-- dadiOH ____________________________
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