Funeral Urn/Box Sizing?

David Agnew

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One of my friends just had to put down his 80lbs Weimaraner dog. He's having him singly cremated. I'd like to surprise him with a box for the bag of ashes. I have no idea how big to make it, though. The only animal I've had to cremate was 12lbs.

Thanks in advance.
 
isn't the coffin usually burned along with the remains? That should be a factor.

I made an urn based on the 1 cubic inch per pound rule. I then saw the remains of a person of about the same weight; it was not quite twice what I expected. This was my only experience with this but, the calculators (or the crematorium) were way off. I look forward to anyone who can empirically clarify this.
 
If you are building a box for the cremains you should plan on having the interior volume to hold about one cubic inch for each pound of live body weight. For an 80 pound animal you would need at least 80 cubic inches on the inside of the box but I would make it larger. A cube made from 3/4" material with exterior dimensions of 6" square would yield an interior volume of almost twice that capacity at a little more than 144 cubic inches.

You can use rice to measure the volume required and to check your container. 80 cubic inches requires a little more than 44 ounces of rice measured in a liquid measuring cup. If you take that measured amount of rice and put it into a plastic bag you can visualize the shape and volume required for the contents you wish to place inside the urn. I find it very useful to do this to visualize the volume I will need inside a turned urn. Doing so helps me select an appropriately sized piece of wood to contain the cremains it is intended to hold.

Here is a link to a table which provides a conversion from cubic inches to liquid ounces. We are not measuring liquid obviously but when we use rice but it is the volume comparison that we are looking for.

Cubic inches to fluid ounces table: http://www.metric-conversions.org/volume/cubic-inches-to-us-ounces-table.htm
 
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Thanks for all the advice, folks. I have to admit it didn't even occur to me to websearch this, even though everything is on the Internet.

I decided on a raw interior measurement of 9x5x4, which gives about 180ci. So the exterior will be 10.5x6.5x5.5-ish. I'll lose a little with the lid and also with the bottom of the box. Not done designing but I figure the interior volume will be around 120-130ci.

First pass:
LewW7df.png


I have a really gorgeous piece of ambrosia maple that I'll be using for this. I have not decided if I want to run the grain horizontally and attempt to match it all the way around the box or run it vertically to accentuate the "fiery" look of the maple. I need to take a picture of my board.... this is a board I found on the Internet. My board has denser striping.

maple,%20ambrosia%2001%20closeup%20s25%20plh.jpg


I also don't know what I'm going to do with the lid. Just ease the edges or camfer them or do something fancy?
 
Remember those beetle holes can penetrate through the board. I'm not sure if the old pup will still be in the bag when it's put to rest but it's something to think about. Sorry for your friend. It had to be tough.
 
I'm sealing it inside and out, but I expect the ashes will be in a baggy. He was great dog. We'd dog-sat him twice for a week each time. Good dog.

I finally scanned in my board and mocked up a couple different ways. Everything to scale.

Horizontal grain, wrapped and matching:
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03HCmE9.png


Vertical grain, wrapped and matching across the front, top, and back:
oFvtmqD.png
P6RGiw3.png



Either way, I've done some test pieces and don't trust myself to be able to do good matching coves after mitering. So I will be cutting the coves (tablesaw method) after assembling the boxes.... hopefully that doesn't rip out the miters. I'll test first.

Cutting a cove into the horizontal grain would obviously be easiest. Tear-out could be an issue with the vertical grain boards.

Thoughts?
 
...So I will be cutting the coves (tablesaw method) after assembling the boxes.... hopefully that doesn't rip out the miters. I'll test first...

I've done that with good results, although I used box joints instead of miters. Since the inside of the box will theoretically only be seen once, I'd think you could use blocks of wood on the inside corners to strengthen the joints.

OrientalBox1-600.jpg


The lid was also made of cove-cut wood, but I milled it as a single board before cutting the lid miters.

...Cutting a cove into the horizontal grain would obviously be easiest. Tear-out could be an issue with the vertical grain boards.

Thoughts?

I think with a sharp blade and multiple light passes, tear-out won't be a problem. But testing (as you're planning to do) will let you know for sure. :thumb: Personally, I like the looks of the vertical orientation.
 
That's a very shiny box. I haven't gotten a spray gun for my new compressor yet, so I think I'm going with a $10 can of spray lacquer.

I'm not worried about the strength of the miters, I'm worried about the saw blade tearing out the mating piece of the miter... ie, it's a square box, so one end will go into the blade vertically, then the horizontal piece, then the trailing side of the box will hit the blade vertically. I'm a bit worried about that side of that miter tearing out.

I've got a test board and hope to get to it tonight. Of course, have to finish the jigs first. Better cove jig. And it's apparently finally time to make a sled. I don't trust my miter gauge to do all of these cross cuts. Or my miter saw. Hmmm, guess I've got trust issues. :D
 
Finally finished the cove jig (which turned out bad) and the cross cut sled (which turned out good)

Also finally put together the prototype, made of special HD Marker Spalted Pine:
HIq0tcV.jpg


It was a good exercise. I refined the order of operations a little bit - I discovered that the arch cut into the base of the wide face is about 3/8" wider than my miter gauge. Oops! So I'll have to cut the 45's on the ends and then jigsaw out the arches.

I also learned interesting things about falling off-cuts from the sled. I think the next sled I build will be out of 1/2" material instead of 3/4".

The coving only went ok. The back edges of the miters did not tear out as I had feared. I have coved once before and used a 24 toothflat-grind ripping blade. This time I used my 60 tooth ATB-grind crosscut blade. And it was awwwwful. I'm switching back to the 24t Rip for the finished product. I also missed on locating the cove. Turns out the proportions I have designed are very very close to being awkward. So the cove being off only 1/4" threw everything off and this box looks very top heavy.

My target coving depth was 3/8". This cove is actually just shy of 5/16" deep. I think the depth looks good, so it's nice to know I have 3/32" additional room to play with.

On the finished product, I'll try to miss the cove to the "narrow" side rather than the "wide" side. I have a couple new ideas on how to setup the jig this time around. I've also decided to run a small 45* camfer around the top of edge of the top to reduce the visual weight.

Still have not purchased the exact hardware. I'll be running this prototype up to the woodworking store to try out various hinges and clasps.
 
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