Thread: Build your own coffin.

You may want to check for some rules here

State Government Burial Regulations relating to cardboard coffins

also the funeral director is responsible for ensuring the coffin meets the requirements, so it may be a good idea to have a chat with your friendly, local undertaker.

Not allowed to in Australia. US can do it. Some make bookshelves and when needed the shelves come out and are nailed on top. But in Aus you can't unless your a certified maker. Need to be lined with rubber bag 'n stuff. If you find out how you can let us all know.

Originally Posted by _fly_

Not allowed to in Australia.

Ahh, so this is where the rip off lies.

I can maybe appreciate there'd be hygiene reasons or some such for a buried coffin, that's fine, but surely a burnt one shouldn't matter. That's a bit of a stinger isn't it? Whatever organs are of no use to others, compost the rest, that's what I reckon.

It's obscene what some coffins are made of. I know there's no rationale when it comes to bad taste. It's a bit like some OTT weddings one hears of; again, there's no accounting for taste, but the decadence must surely be apparent to all – and all of it for just an hour or so.

A more environmentally friendly burial might be to place the corpse in a bio-degradable, recycled paper sack and stuff it into a hole bored with a tractor-mounted auger, which method, itself, would save on diminishing funereal-approved land.

I think it would be most thoughtful if all oldies were to carry out the conscionable act of taking themselves off to an active volcano where a purpose-built platform and chapel were erected on the volcano rim. After a brief service and farewell (set to the soon-to-be-departeds' favourite music) via Skype to any interested relatives and friends, they could walk, or be assisted out onto the platform's edge and from there, take a swan dive into the abyss.

Failing that crematorium not being built and ready in the next few years, I'm perfectly happy to be burnt at the minimal legal cost and my ashes put into the wheelie bin (when fully cooled of course).

Its a great idea. I too am revolted by the sheer bad taste and extravagance of them all. Good grade cabinet ply would do me. Fine enough for a good finish. I would paint mine with fine Renaissance landscapes.

Looking at the link it would appear that most States have no problem and the toughest of the others is to make it waterproof.
I also find it rather offensive, especially the move towards those enormous american style caskets rather than the traditional coffin shape which always seems much more modest.

Quite some years ago, while working in wholesale timber and structural products, we supplied products to most of the major coffin makers in the country. When calling on one of my regulars he advised me of a new business recently started in a neighbouring suburb. He also informed me that this new coffin business used quite a bit of downgrade particle board, a product we were always most eager to unload. I decided to pay this new enterprise a visit with the intention of determining whether they had a suitable use for downgrade board.
Upon meeting the gentleman, I asked the obvious question, to which he responded by guiding me to the front door and insisting my shaddow never darken his doorway again, deposited me out on the street!
Some weeks later, I encountered my original customer and informant. He asked if I had managed to catch up with the new people yet and I confirmed that I had. He asked if they were keen to take downgrade. I told him what had transpired. This doubled him up in fits of laughter. I demanded to be let in on the joke. The explanation was, that in an effort to gain some market share, the newly established business had taken to manufacturing coffins using downgrade particle board as a base. Obviously this was a cost cutting measure allowing them a little price leveridge. Unfortunately this was before the days of HMR board. When delivering one of his coffins, in the back of his ute,to a funeral director, he drove through a heavy shower of rain which leaked through the ute's torno cover and soaked the base of the coffin. This was not apparent to either the deliverer or the reciever. The coffin was lined and loaded, trollied out to the hurse and slid into the back. The first time the coffin was lifted was at the church and the inevitable happened.
I have it on good authority he uses waterproof plywood for his bases now and I have never been asked to quote on supply of same.

Both my parents went up in smoke in cardboard boxes. Kind of fun to scatter the ashes. Just think: "Mum-in-a-drum." I'll donate my sorry #### to the local medical school. Hope somebody gets a laugh.

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

I'll donate my sorry #### to the local medical school.

I applied to donate my remains to Melbourne University and they turned me down! The cheek!

Originally Posted by Woodwould

I applied to donate my remains to Melbourne University and they turned me down! The cheek!

I think they would prefer person no longer living.

Rustynail I laughed out loud. Though--that's also really terrible.

I may be cynical bet do they really burn them ??? and then recycle them again We had a family funeral 3 weeks ago and we saw the coffin for all of 1 hour and that was it!
Me and the brother in law got talk about the same subject he agrees we reckon between the 2 of us we probably could do a better job me being the woodworker/renovator him being a cabnetmaker/kitchen manufacturer
Any how thats my 2bobs worth I would like to be proved wrong that they don't recycle them .

Just a thought

Brian

Interesting. I question the 'regulations won't allow' thing. My sister (in Melbourne this is) died of cancer not long ago. I can't remember who made the box, I don't think it was a licensed coffin-maker, but I could be wrong. Bro-in-law organised it, that's why I don't know full details.

It was raw mdf, we had it in the garage, undercoated it and a couple of her friends who were professional artists came and painted pictures on it. The undertaker took it and that's what was there at the funeral. Had a heap more personality and meaning than some shiny red-stained cherry veneer number with gold-chrome handles and colonial-style nobs and mouldings all over it.