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The inventor of the screw-in coffin
- rolph 5y agowe can take that a step further, and produce a screw-in survival bunker; it would be a lot like boreing a caisson into position then making a suitable doorway and overburden.
- dade_ 5y ago
- gleenn 5y agoInventor: "No more trouble than putting a fence post in" haha. Something about being buried in the upright position instead of laying down seems... not very restful. I shudder to think how a corpse in the upright position would decompose differently.
- cortesoft 5y agoI don't think a corpse cares how it rests
- hamburglar 5y agoBurial ceremonies and the idea that the body is "at rest" is for the benefit of the living, not the deceased.
- dylan604 5y agoPhrases like "ashes to ashes", "dust to dust", or "worm food" seem so out of place now with people being buried in coffins that don't allow for the worms to feed or the ashes and/or dust to mingle with the rest of the ashes/dust. The whole being buried thing just seems so illogical to me. I know it means different things to different people, but I just can't wrap my head around its purpose.
- Jtsummers 5y ago> but I just can't wrap my head around its purpose. Cultural: To have a place to visit the deceased that is strongly associated with them, as their body is literally there (especially for ancestors). Sanitation: To keep the rotting corpse away from people and avoid spreading disease or attracting predators and vermin.
- makeitdouble 5y agoBoth aspects are still there when you incinerate the body (arguably ashes will stay longer there than when they’re taken away in the soil)
- Jtsummers 5y agoAnd? They asked why bury. Those are the main two reasons. That there is an alternative that offers similar results doesn’t invalidate those reasons or the choice to bury.
- dylan604 5y agoI should revise my question. I get the burying part to an extent as the body does need to go somewhere, and being able to build funeral pyres isn't always an available option. However, I never understood the part of the coffin that prevents natural processes to occur. It all sounds like someone came up with a solution to a problem that didn't exist. Even for religions that believe in resurrections, do people think their corpses are going to be reanimated a la Lazurus or that an all knowing all powerful deity couldn't just create a new something? It's all just so logic defying.
- jandrese 5y agoYou end up a pile of bones either way. The dead don't care. It is the living relatives that will balk.
- hindsightbias 5y agoGuy has obviously not put up a lot of fence posts.
- JetAlone 5y agoYes, I think you've got a point. It doesn't exactly fit my own image of the word "repose", and there are probably plenty others who will feel similarly... It feels more like "waiting", like the imagery of the Terra Cotta Army.
- dylan604 5y agoAren't there certain customs from various religions that dictate how followers are to be buried. I know some are supposed to lay facing east, but maybe I'm forcing the "lay" part in there. Would this work as long as the last twist had the person facing east? So many questions. Like, why do we bury anyways, blah blah, but don't want to dig that hole.
- klyrs 5y agoMy god dictates that I'm to be buried in a standing position on frictionless bearings, so that I face East in the morning and West in the evening... so this gets us pretty close. Like my religion, this invention is a solution in search of a problem.
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y agoCould you screw it in at an angle? Must the body be horizontal or is 45 degrees fine?
- dylan604 5y agoThese are the pointless religious debates that just seem comical to me. Similar to the recent thread on if it was okay for Catholics to partake in chocolate. The fact there was continual debate throughout history is just so funny to me.
- Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago> Similar to the recent thread on if it was okay for Catholics to partake in chocolate. Intriguing. Do you have a link?
- dylan604 5y agosearch for theology of chocolate
- ntrz 5y agoThe patent does say it can be installed at various angles, illustrated in figs. 25 and 26 (also of interest is fig. 27, which shows it buried in the bed of a shallow lake with a duck decoy affixed to the lid).
- a9h74j 5y agoTake a look at Figs 38-43. There are sure to be theological debates about whether one can -- or should? -- be buried with a proprietary "tamper proof" screwhead.
- fortran77 5y agoJust put a Security Torx on it!
- hamburglar 5y agoI heard Steve Jobs is buried in a pentalobe screw-in coffin.
- ch 5y agoConsidering how difficult it can be to install a fence post in glacial till, this sounds like a less than exciting proposition.
- gnfargbl 5y agoWould it be possible to make a version of this in of some kind of biodegradable material? I would like to convert my physical form into a tree or similar after death (rather than something inefficient like burning, or horrific like being mummified in a lead box). This seems like it could be an interesting option for that.
- trhway 5y agoreminded - very popular Ukrainian message these days, on TV and everywhere, to Russian soldiers is to carry sunflower seeds in their pockets so at least sunflowers will grow when the soldiers die on Ukrainian land.
- conductr 5y agoI did this with a pet dog weighing about 80 pounds. I think this device would just get in the way honestly. Tips: Don’t start with seeds. Use a tree farm sized tree (I think mine was 100 gallon container). Or something established. Growing trees from seed is time consuming and the slightest thing can kill it. Now, since you already have the need to dig, toss yourself into a burlap bag and jump in the hole before placing the tree and backfilling. A few years later, the tree is looking great and occasionally I talk to it when I’m missing that dog.
- supernova87a 5y agoI don't know why "hermetically sealed" is anything remotely desirable for someone to be buried in. As if you're protecting yourself from some gross fate of being in the ground. Who cares? More gross (if that's your concern) is being a sealed capsule full of goo that can't escape anywhere for a millennium. Wouldn't you rather be absorbed back into the earth to be one with the elements?
- MontagFTB 5y agoMy guess is that if the top of the casket is close to the surface, decomposition gasses would leak out and attract carrion-eating animals. Not to mention the smell.
- monocasa 5y agoIf it's hermetically sealed, where are those decomposition gasses going to go? A field full of dead bodies in pressurized cans waiting to go off for decades doesn't sound like a great time.
- willcipriano 5y agoGrandpa would be pleased to know that his gas made grandma furious and horrified one last time.
- DocTomoe 5y agoIn standard, central-european graveyards, there is a particular "graveyard smell", which lingers for decades even after burials are stopped. I always figured that is created by decomposition gasses escaping the ground, mixed with wet soil and standard funerary plants (often conifers).
- Bayart 5y agoIf anything, an hermiticaly sealed body is much more interesting to scientists. See the St Bees man. His 14th c. corpse was still fresh as his lead casket remained sealed.
- 5y ago
- conductr 5y agoHaving used an auger of much smaller size, I can’t imagine how difficult this would be to screw in to compacted soil.
- alex_young 5y agoDon't you still have to excavate though? The dirt has to go somewhere... Also, if you were a daredevil type, maybe you could go in head-first. That's called skeleton right?
- polishdude20 5y agoYeah that thing would not be easily screwed in by two people by hand. You'd need a machine
- chillingeffect 5y agoThis. The friction must be enormous. The corpse plus the coffin. And all that surface area.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoIt's in the patent, you have auger out most of the dirt first. Think of like one of those plastic dry wall anchors that you drill a slightly smaller hole and then screw (sometime hammer, depending on style) in the anchor.
- dtgriscom 5y agoI want to see a prototype of a hammer-in coffin.
- DonHopkins 5y agoI was hoping this was about spacious, softly upholstered, two-person coffins for live people with vampire fetishes to screw in.
- kragen 5y agoI am looking forward to your Medium post. Except I hope you post it somewhere without a paywall.
- jay_kyburz 5y agoI should patent a coffin bullet that can be used to fire bodies off into space.
- annoyingnoob 5y agoOr into the ground.
- variaga 5y agoThere's prior art: see Spock's burial in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan
- dtgriscom 5y agoOr, something like a powder-actuated nail gun, but scaled up so it could drive a coffin into bedrock.
- onemoresoop 5y agoIt is not a bad idea footprint wise for coffins to be standing up. At first glance the screw-in capsule sounds like a revolutionary idea too, it could save some time and effort with digging as well as burial space. In practice it wouldn't work so well and a pre-hole would need to be done with some machinery. Second, the cost of the capsule, considering it would be made out steel would add up quickly too. Still, coffins standing up to save space would not be a bad idea though I would rather be cremated so as not to contribute to funerary industry. I'm trying to picture the whole burial process with the capsule and find it somewhat comical. Would the family of the deceased have a ceremony before the capsule is screwed in, after, when it's half way in?
- kragen 5y agoSteel costs 50 cents a kg. You could probably make do with a rough casting of cast iron. It might cost US$100. By contrast current coffins commonly exceed US$5000 in rich countries. I think the ritual and symbolic concerns you point out are a much more serious issue. How are you going to get your corpse cremated without involving the funerary industry?
- digitcatphd 5y agoThere are what 300 M people in the US today? This is 9 B Sq Ft or 300 + sq miles of burial space, about 12x the size of Manhattan, every 100 years or so… We shouldn’t be thinking about burying people, or doing so in a sustainable way
- brandonmenc 5y agoThe rate of cremation has been skyrocketing and is currently over 50%. The problem is solving itself. https://www.statista.com/statistics/251702/cremation-rate-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/251702/cremation-rate-in...
- munificent 5y agoI've noticed this too. My hunch is that it's a consequence of greater mobility. Getting buried in a cemetary has much less appeal when it's either in a town you haven't been to since you moved away decades ago, or in some city you moved to as an adult and where none of your family live or are likely to visit. When cemetaries have no real sense of meaningful permanence to people, there's no point in leaving your body in one.
- Gustomaximus 5y agoThis but also I would assume cost. Increased urbanisation means grave sites near where people live (so they can visit) are expensive.
- brandonmenc 5y ago> My hunch is that it's a consequence of greater mobility. Most people nowadays just think it's creepy to be mummified. I think your point is also relevant, but less so.
- munificent 5y agoI mean, it's creepy to be incinerated too.
- dhosek 5y agoAssorted thoughts: - My wife's aunt was buried in a gravesite where multiple coffins were stacked (at least three deep, maybe four). That allows for more efficient use of space than does this screw-in design. - Historically in Europe, you would only be buried long enough for the flesh to decompose and then bones would be removed to an ossuary. There are assorted "bone chapels" that show the artistic uses the bones were put to. - Culturally, at least in the west, there is a desire to make it look like the dead person is asleep (although things always end up looking a bit off because, well, they're dead. At the last funeral I attended, for a high school friend, his skin had a distinct greenish tint to it). For these reasons and countless others that I'm not going to come up with, I would expect sales of the screw-in coffin to total in the middle two digits. Maybe fewer.
- andywaite 5y ago> - Culturally, at least in the west, there is a desire to make it look like the dead person is asleep (although things always end up looking a bit off because, well, they're dead. This is not true for most of the West, open caskets are a bizarre North American thing.
- Renaud 5y agoThere is usually a 'viewing' in mortuary chambers where people/close family can visit the deceased a few days before burial. There is no open casket during the ceremony though. That part seems to be fairly specific to North America.
- frogpelt 5y agoI assumed the "viewing" was to bring a sense of closure. Maybe that's silly. Does it help to see them dead? The last viewing I went to the person's hands and face were bruised because of IV lines and such. It wasn't nice.
- Beltalowda 5y agoWell, death in general isn't very nice. I don't know if it really helps; needs a controlled study I suppose :-) I just enjoyed being there with the family. That part did help.
- tlug 5y agoIf anyone has tried digging a deeper hole in the ground, they'll understand that this hand-operated screw-like coffin can't work at all, due to the forces involved. You need to displace a huge amount of dirt, I don't see that happening without digging a hole first.
- burkaman 5y agoYou still dig a hole for this coffin: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/US7631404B2/US07631404-20091215-D00014.png https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/US7631404B2/US07... > To prepare a grave site for this screw in type of Easy Inter Burial Container installation, a drilling auger, such as those commonly used on a power-take-off attached on the working arm of a tractor backhoe, is used to bore a pilot hole in the direction of the intended Easy Inter Burial Container installation (See FIG. 28). The depth of this hole is usually about half the length of the Easy Inter Burial Container and approximately half its diameter, depending upon the type and condition of the earth or receiving material in which the burial is to be made. Adding an amount of water to the hole aids in causing the earth or receiving material to displace and more readily pack around the Easy Inter Burial Container as well as helps lubricate the passage of the hull and threads or fins during installation.
- ejb999 5y agono way this works, not in typical soil - and probably not even in sand. First of all, much too hard to be done by hand, so then you need a big piece of hydraulic equipment, which I am quite sure could handle the force necessary (think post haul auger that telephone companies use). But that coffin is not going to be strong enough to withstand those forces - and who wants to watch that think 'snap' when you are trying to screw it into the ground and you end up snapping gramma or grandpa in half...sorry, but no thanks.
- rootusrootus 5y agoCute idea, though I think I'd just dig a slightly larger hole a bit deeper and then stick a more conventional casket (round, perhaps) into it.
- paraxion 5y agoA lot of people are pointing out flaws like the difficulty in screwing it in - although the original patent includes the use of a post-hole digger as a pilot hole. Nobody has mentioned the fact that - in the video at least - the deceased's head would be in the above-ground portion. Entering a cemetery would expose you to a large field of head-boxes. The idea of this on a hot day also concerns me: hermetically sealed is one thing, but steam pressure is pretty intense. I propose an alteration: the unit be built with a large slot in the top, instead of the current capstan device. Then you could use a standard gravestone as a screwdriver...
- tomcam 5y agoThere will never be a funnier comment on HN than this one. Thank you for bestowing the phrase “large field of head-boxes” upon an undeserving world and for passing the baton so elegantly to /u/tantalor.
- Kluny 5y agoSecond place for "Then you could use a standard gravestone as a screwdriver..."
- tomcam 5y agoAgreed. You almost never see that much comedy packed into such a small space.
- BizarroLand 5y agoMentally picturing 2 men using a grave stone as a 1/3 meter socket head is too funny, the ratchet making the chk-chk-chk-chk! as they wind up for another turn.
- tantalor 5y ago"Phillips head"
- hettygreen 5y agoZOMG great idea, take my (VC) money!
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kumarvvr 5y agoA number of flaws in the basic design but the most important one is how do you push through rocks in the ground?
- Gigachad 5y agoDepending on how rocky it is, perhaps something like a large powered impact driver could be used to push through. I'm not sure how it would be any improvement over just excavating a large enough hole to begin with though.
- alejohausner 5y agoThis would definitely not work here in New Hampshire, which has very rocky soil. The state's motto, "The Granite State" is as much a farmer's lament as it is a description of the steadfastness of its residents. In fact, many 100-year-old cemeteries are built UP from the ground, since it's so hard to plant a coffin six feet deep here using just a shovel and a pick.
- WheelsAtLarge 5y agoThe idea seems like a winner but a big flaw is that you need to dig a pilot hole. If that's the case then just dig the hole a bit larger and burry a regular coffin standing up. Or, for that matter, a tightly wrapped body can just be placed standing up. If somehow you could skip the pilot hole then it would be a great solution. I don't know enough to give an educated opinion but the screw in solution is certainly a creative one. I suspect that it has other uses.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pabs3 5y agoHuman composting or burying and planting a tree on top seem like more sustainable options these days.
- Epiphany21 5y agoThe design would make more sense if it was scaled down for use as an urn. Cremation is less of a financial burden on families who might still want a grave site to visit. Plus the smaller design makes the remains portable in case they ever have to be relocated. The full sized coffin makes no sense to me.
- manifoldgeo 5y agoI would've loved to have been there for the original pitch. I bet he wore his nicest threads to garner investors. And his business plan was tight! He'd found an untapped market. The unveiling of the prototype made his partner Phillip's head turn in awe. I read that the screw-in coffin was stripped of its patent after the USPTO found prior art. The inventor's life ended in a downward spiral.