Just in time for July 4th, here’s a post about Eagles. Not the Hotel California Eagles, but Gandalf’s Eagles and our eagles at Piedmont Pine Coffins. If you’ve ever read J.R.R. Tolkien or seen the movies based on his Hobbit and Lord of the Rings books, you know that giant eagles are his deus ex machina. Sort of. Or at least, […]
A coffin-joiner’s prayer
June 24, 2015
A coffin-joiner’s prayer O length of plank, be straight and true And form thyself to something worth An unrepeatable life on this magnificent Earth We have been making a lot of coffins lately here at Piedmont Pine Coffins. It takes about 12 hours to make one, so there be time to think. Though each box will go […]
Hand cut dovetails
January 24, 2015
Here’s the hand cut dovetails update from Piedmont Pine Coffins. We are now making our urns, all-wood coffins, and pet caskets with hand cut dovetails. It’s a distinctive and high-quality design delivered for the same price. I always intend, when I start a day in the workshop, to make something worthy of a particular and unrepeatable […]
I see dead people
January 21, 2015
I see dead people in the Piedmont Pine Coffins workshop. Their tools, anyway. It’s an honor, and fitting really, that I should make coffins with the weathered and worn tools of dead woodworkers, those artisanal all-stars of a past age. May the expertise of their ghostly hands guide me as I strive to craft something worthy. That’s my intent […]
Why use pine, plus bonus ruminations
December 22, 2014
Why use pine, in seven reasons, as follows. Most are poetical, as you’ll see. First is for green burial: Pine degrades quickly in contact with earth and water. This trait is great for ashes-to-ashes, dust-to-dust. The second is for business. Pine is not expensive. The last five – the five senses of taste and touch, etc. – […]
Green small business on UNC-TV
November 19, 2014
As a green small business, Piedmont Pine Coffins has benefitted greatly over the last few years from programming sponsored by the Small Business Center at our local community college. So we were happy to talk about it last month with cameras from UNC-TV in Raleigh. I say “we” because half the story below is about my wife’s […]