September 19th 2006

I finished the main construction of the coffin today.  It took a bit of planning to get everything nailed and screwed together so that it will be strong enough to handle the abuse that it's going to have to endure.  The lid of the coffin is going to be slammed open against chains and a brace many hundreds of times and I don't want to have to fix anything on Halloween night.

The coffin leans back 22.5 degrees and tilts to one side 15 degrees.  All of my base cuts were based off those two angles.  I cut the back all at once with a radial saw, but I built up the sides using my compound miter saw.

I had a heck of a time finding boards on the pallets that were the same width.  The free pallets I got are from all different manufacturers and have different width and thickness of boards on them.  That's not such a big deal when making the lid or back, but the sides needed to line up and it was a pain finding matching boards in all of the pallets.

Becky helped me out a lot today.  Holding this or that part together while I nailed and screwed them together.  It rained on and off most of the day, so progress was slow as I moved tools in and out of the garage.

The coffin is the perfect size for 1/2 of a skeleton.  I left a couple of holes in the door for the skeleton's hands to grab on to.  I think this prop is going to be a lot of fun to watch.

I still have a lot of work to do on the basic construction.  I need a base so I can decorate it to look like the coffin has been pushed out of the ground.  It's pretty obvious at the moment that it's not a full coffin and the effect is ruined by the support braces in the back.

There's a long way to go still - I'll do my best to keep posting updates as the project progresses.