The inventor of the screw-in coffin

A 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&#x27;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.<p>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...

Assorted thoughts:<p>- My wife&#x27;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.<p>- 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 &quot;bone chapels&quot; that show the artistic uses the bones were put to.<p>- 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&#x27;re dead. At the last funeral I attended, for a high school friend, his skin had a distinct greenish tint to it).<p>For these reasons and countless others that I&#x27;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.

I was hoping this was about spacious, softly upholstered, two-person coffins for live people with vampire fetishes to screw in.

Don&#x27;t you still have to excavate though? The dirt has to go somewhere...<p>Also, if you were a daredevil type, maybe you could go in head-first. That&#x27;s called skeleton right?

If anyone has tried digging a deeper hole in the ground, they&#x27;ll understand that this hand-operated screw-like coffin can&#x27;t work at all, due to the forces involved. You need to displace a huge amount of dirt, I don&#x27;t see that happening without digging a hole first.

Aren&#x27;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&#x27;m forcing the &quot;lay&quot; part in there. Would this work as long as the last twist had the person facing east?<p>So many questions. Like, why do we bury anyways, blah blah, but don&#x27;t want to dig that hole.

Having used an auger of much smaller size, I can’t imagine how difficult this would be to screw in to compacted soil.

It 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&#x27;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&#x27;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&#x27;s half way in?

Inventor: &quot;No more trouble than putting a fence post in&quot; 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.

I would&#x27;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&#x27;d found an untapped market. The unveiling of the prototype made his partner Phillip&#x27;s head turn in awe.<p>I read that the screw-in coffin was stripped of its patent after the USPTO found prior art. The inventor&#x27;s life ended in a downward spiral.

The idea seems like a winner but a big flaw is that you need to dig a pilot hole. If that&#x27;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&#x27;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.

This would definitely not work here in New Hampshire, which has very rocky soil. The state&#x27;s motto, &quot;The Granite State&quot; is as much a farmer&#x27;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&#x27;s so hard to plant a coffin six feet deep here using just a shovel and a pick.

Considering how difficult it can be to install a fence post in glacial till, this sounds like a less than exciting proposition.

A number of flaws in the basic design but the most important one is how do you push through rocks in the ground?

There 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…<p>We shouldn’t be thinking about burying people, or doing so in a sustainable way

no 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).<p>But that coffin is not going to be strong enough to withstand those forces - and who wants to watch that think &#x27;snap&#x27; when you are trying to screw it into the ground and you end up snapping gramma or grandpa in half...sorry, but no thanks.

Take a look at Figs 38-43. There are sure to be theological debates about whether one can -- or should? -- be buried with a proprietary &quot;tamper proof&quot; screwhead.

The 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.<p>The full sized coffin makes no sense to me.

Would it be possible to make a version of this in of some kind of biodegradable material?<p>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.

I don&#x27;t know why &quot;hermetically sealed&quot; is anything remotely desirable for someone to be buried in. As if you&#x27;re protecting yourself from some gross fate of being in the ground. Who cares?<p>More gross (if that&#x27;s your concern) is being a sealed capsule full of goo that can&#x27;t escape anywhere for a millennium. Wouldn&#x27;t you rather be absorbed back into the earth to be one with the elements?

I should patent a coffin bullet that can be used to fire bodies off into space.

we 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.

Cute idea, though I think I&#x27;d just dig a slightly larger hole a bit deeper and then stick a more conventional casket (round, perhaps) into it.

Human composting or burying and planting a tree on top seem like more sustainable options these days.

ZOMG great idea, take my (VC) money!