Today you will learn how coffins are made. Let's go! We came to Cordeirópolis, in the interior of São Paulo, where the largest coffin factory in Brazil is located.
They manufacture funerary urns of all kinds. It has more than two hundred and fifteen models, from the simplest ones, which are donated by city halls, to the super expensive ones, and even coffins for domestic animals like this one, which is made for dogs. This is where the raw material arrives.
Practically everything is made of that wood that is pine. It is planted wood, it is not taken straight from the forest, it comes from the state of São Paulo. For it to reach that diameter, it needs more or less 15 years in the plantation.
These logs here are two and ten meters long, which is the ideal size for us to be able to move from one side to the other, take them in the truck and also to enter the sawmill. The first cut of the log is to turn it into a large parallelepiped and then it will be sliced to have a bunch of boards. From these boards we are going to make the coffin.
The coffin can be made either from pine, as is the case here, or from cedar, from mdf. In the United States, they make it out of metal. .
. and look how cool, here everything is reused. The bark of the tree, for example, is used in the ovens here at the factory as firewood.
Sawdust becomes ecological firewood, briquette is the name. It's a kind of. .
. it looks like giant dog food, and it's also used to make the coffin pillows that you're going to see in a moment. Wood cannot be used wet, it has to dry.
If we left it in the weather as this one here, it would take 30 days to dry. That's why they put it in a boiler, where this process takes 36 hours. This is practically a wood oven.
The idea is to evaporate the moisture from the board, which has to get to about 10 or 13 percent moisture. Right now, it's 60 degrees in here. This shovel here weighs about 15 kilos, no kidding.
In that boiler where the wood has just been placed, the humidity is at 80%. In this other one, in a little while it will be able to be removed, because the humidity is at 16%. And look how amazing, can you see this knot here?
A knot is where the branch of the tree grows and here, to make a coffin, they remove all these knots. They cut the wood here to exclude this part, because here in the knot the wood is more fragile and at any moment it can fall and leave a hole in its place. A person has to look board by board and find each knot, then they mark it with crayons and send it here to this machine that will identify the scratches and cut where the person marked.
These little pieces of wood, now without a knot, have to become a single board. To do this, they notch some teeth on the edge of the board, apply white glue and join. And when it's done, it'll look something like this.
And this wood has to be glued once more on the side. This machine that will do it. It applies a strip of glue, a special glue, which has to be dried in the microwave.
That's what will make sure it stays strong. A very large panel is formed and then they start cutting. From now on, the idea is to make the wood more beautiful, to decorate the wood.
So, there will be several different processes, several designs that can be made and that can already be seen on the outside of the coffin. The coolest machine in this section is the embroiderer. It's a steamroller with a kind of stamp, which has a pattern, has a design.
It will go over the pine in a very strong, very tight way. And since pine is soft wood, the design will stay in the wood. Here in the cutting sector, the pieces are already starting to come together.
And look, we have two pieces glued together in an L shape, they are already cut at the right angle to start assembling. This one is a piece that goes on the shoulder of the coffin. And look at the bottom of the coffin here.
It's made of OSB, that siding you find on every street corner painted pink. But he says it's super strong. During assembly, he will apply glue to each piece, then he will put it here in this press.
He has to staple the wood, so it doesn't slide while the glue is drying. They also put the mdf reinforcements, which is to make it more resistant. And on top of all that, goes the bottom of the coffin.
For the lid, the process is the same as for the coffin. The difference is that it is a little smaller and that here the bottom is left empty, because it is over this hole that the overlay will go in, which is usually a piece that is a little more elaborate with a design. The paint and varnish are placed here inside this cabin because the gases need to be drawn out.
On most caskets, it's not the color of the pine that will show. In this model here, for example, it's this little brown background and then this darker shading on the edges. The next step is to screw in the handle or the rods, depending on the casket model.
The pole can be made of metal or plastic. It is also at this time that the overlay goes, that top part of the coffin that is made of very thin mdf. After all this, the varnish is applied.
And this machine here is for the quality test to see if the coffin can withstand weight. And there's a discussion going on here whether I should go into that coffin to see if the deal really works. But before we decide that, for us to show the result of this decision, I have to tell you a curiosity.
Here, this background is glued with school glue, with white glue. I'm shocked by this. The only difference between the glue used here and the glue they have at school is that this one is more viscous, it's a little stronger.
The idea here is to simulate a procession, so the machine shakes as if there were six people each holding a coffin handle and, inside it, there was an 80-kilogram person being carried in very complicated circumstances. You can see it's shaking a lot. And do you know what this is here?
It's the sawdust pillow I mentioned at the beginning of the video. Here it is ready, it's already in the bag. It'll just get a pillowcase to go straight to the coffin.
Now began the lining of the coffin. First, she'll put this lace around it, then a strip of fabric, and lastly, she'll staple the paper lining. Before packing, they put the braces and the pillow that I already showed you.
If the casket is a luxury one, the process is quite different, it is almost entirely manual. It's a person who will sand, make the drawings. .
. The manufacture of each piece will be different, it is logical that the price will also be very different. I was asked why here in Brazil there are only coffins in this hexagonal or six-sided model.
In fact, here in Brazil we also have a square coffin, like in the United States. It's just that here we follow this model that is used a lot in Italy. In countries with English descent or with English colonization, they use the square coffin more.
Another curiosity in this regard is that the cemeteries here in Brazil are not very prepared to receive the square coffin. That's why we only use these here. If the person dies of a very contagious disease or, then, in some accident where the body cannot be shown, they must be buried in a sealed coffin.
So, inside the wooden coffin is this other one made of zinc. It also has a bottom and top part, which is closed like a can. You have no idea, these guys are ninjas.
They assemble 800 caskets a day. This duo assembles 800 coffins a day. How many kilos does the simplest coffin you have here support?
Our "standard" coffin holds around 80 kilos. I could no longer be buried in one of these. I weigh 84.
In a way, the company recommends not. But yes, it would. It can take a little longer.
We say 80 kilos for safety reasons, right? To make sure that all the coffins will hold and will have all the right resistance. When you go to a funeral home, then, are they going to have different weight ranges?
Yes, there will be weight ranges. After that, I have a 120-kilogram coffin, a 220-kilogram coffin, a 300-kilogram coffin and a 400-kilogram one, which is this one. 400 kilos.
. . is it sold a lot?
Is it common to make this type of coffin? It's not a common coffin, but it's a coffin that, nowadays, we have to keep at least 3 in stock. Currently, we sold our three in stock, this one is being produced to fill this gap.
And look how interesting, the coffin has an expiration date. Yes, there is a three-month warranty and, after two years, it is no longer recommended to put a person inside. That's because the coffin can get termites, the wood can get wet, there's the issue of glue.
. . And, above all, wood can warp, right?
Over time, the wood can twist, especially if left in the sun. And then it will detach itself, because this movement of the wood is very strong. Mari is suspicious that the OSB cannot support a person's weight, because she found it too soft.
Is there any test we can do to see if it holds up? Of course, if you want, I can get you an urn from the stock. You can jump to the bottom of it.
Let's go! You first, Mari! Start with the lightest.
Let me just explain that I managed to get away with the machine. And the test will now be here on the ground. Just for the record, I'm 59 kilos.
It's holding up. Now you. The heavier Iberê will go up now.
Now I'm going to level up the test here, 84 kilos. The paper is coming off, but the bottom isn't. It's the paper that's cracking.
