Need Help with an Urn

[William Johanson]

Hey guys and gals I need some help bad. I just lost a very good friend and coworker last night. He was only 49. Anyway his son called me tonight and asked if I would make an urn for him. I have done a great deal of plaques from wood and marble but have never done an urn. I don't even know where to get one or what size I would need. I need to get this done this weekend. Do any of you have an urn in stock that works well with laser engraving that you would be willing to sell me and ship it to me via UPS Saturday delivery? I need something of a suitable size for an adult male. I can't say that money is no object but I am definitely willing to make it worth your time and effort. I live in Minnesota so if someone local can help me I would be more than happy to drive to you and meet you anytime. This is very important for me to do this for my friend and his family. Even if you know of a supplier that would be willing to ship that quickly please let me know. Thanks folks I would really appreciate any help or advice.

Bill

[Thad Nickoley]

I know that laserbits has a nice urn that engraves great. I dont know about the shipping time though. They ship to me practically overnight

[William Johanson]

I was looking at these but I don't know if they are large enough. The biggest appears to be 100 Cubic Inches. These are marketed as Pet Urns, Is there a difference?

Thanks,

Bill

[Thad Nickoley]

a general rule of thumb is 1 pound of healthy weight to 1 cubic inch

[Scott Challoner]

Sorry to hear about your friend William. I made an urn for my dad when he passed away last year. Pretty tough job.
Try www.theurnstore.com. They have several wood urns that look like they would engrave nicely. I would imagine they can rush ship. They probably get requests for rush orders all the time.

[Todd Schwartz]

William - sorry to hear about your loss. You will need at least 200 cubic inches minimum. Also a box sturdy enough to hold 10 pounds. Been there twice in the last 3 months.

As a last resort, most funeral homes will have cremation urns, maybe you can find one locally that you can engrave on to personalize.

Good luck and best wishes,

Todd

[William Johanson]

Ok guys thanks for the info. I am going to bed but i will be checking this early tomorrow and during the day so any other ideas or sources I could call tomorrow would be greatly appreciated. I found one that appears to be large enough that is nice but simple at Colorado Heirloom. I will give them a call tomorrow.

Bill

[Mike Null]

William

Sorry for your loss.

This place showed up on the context sensitive Google ads.
http://www.urns.com/appreciation.html

[Steve McKee]

You might also try colorado heirloom, I recall seeing one large enough for an adult. There is a company in Duluth that makes them however they are custom and could not get one done quickly enough for this weekend.

Steve

Here's the link

http://www.coloradoheirloom.com/Urns.html

[Bill Morrison]

http://www.urnsnw.com has a good selection but if you need something this week-end that is short notice for most stores. Really sorry to hear about your loss. Good Luck
Bill

[Paul Proffitt]

I have a client who makes beautiful urns. The pictures included are of a simple one. Most all are turned on a lathe with threaded lids. This one is turned, but is also octagonal. I created and engraved the crosses that are included on the urn since it was too big for my laser to engrave directly.

You can see some of his work here: http://www.artistic-turnings.com/

[Nicole Hernandez]

Hi William,
I sent you a PM. I have some urns in stock... wish I would have read this yesterday... I could have gotten it out to you.

[Craig Hogarth]

Sorry to hear about your friend William. I made an urn for my dad when he passed away last year. Pretty tough job.
Try www.theurnstore.com. They have several wood urns that look like they would engrave nicely. I would imagine they can rush ship. They probably get requests for rush orders all the time.

I wish i could retail something like this at that price.

http://www.theurnstore.com/engravedeasels.html

[William Johanson]

Well first of all thank you all for your input and ideas. This has been the the worst string of luck I have had in a long time. From my original post I recieved a PM Friday from an individual on SMC that offered to send me an urn. He offered to send it out right away Friday and work out the payment next week after things calmed down for me. I then found out that it was over $130 to send this item NDA satrurday delivery. This member sent this urn out without knowing me from Adam and covered not only the cost of the urn but the ridiculous shipping just trusting that I would pay him back. Boy does that tell me how good of people we have here and that there really are good people left in the world. I would just like to give a huge public Thank You to Luke Phillips. Luke your a heck of a guy.
Anyway on with the bad luck,I have had some bad experiences with Saturday deliveries so to protect myself I also order 2 other urns from Colorado Heirloom and paid another $130 + cost of the urns to ship these Saturday delivery. I need to have an urn ready first thing Monday AM. Well, Long story short Fed Ex screwed up and I didn't get Lukes Urn, wont be here until Monday. Well at least I have the ones from Colorado Heirloom coming, right? Wrong! they never showed up either. So here I am at 5:00 last night running around calling everywhere to find an urn. I finally found a funeral home that had one person working late that was willing to stay open for me , It is made of poplar for $245. Wow for that kind of money you would think it would be really nice, right? Wrong! It was very plain, The joinery was horrible and the finish was very thin and cheap. Well what do I do I am stuck, So there goes another $245 and I don't know if poplar even evgraves well, but I need to have something for my friend.
So I get home with the ugly poplar urn and look at it under good lighting (it was very dim lighting at the funeral home). It looks even worse than I thought it did at the funeral home. Large gaps in joints, Loose knots and the finish was dirty from years of people touching it on the shelf at the funeral home. Now what, I was embarrassed to even give this away. So screw it, I spend half the night in the wood shop and made my own. I should have just done this to begin with but I have never even seen an urn in person before and I thought there are surely special ways these must be built to hold the ashes right? Wrong! The $245 dollar ugly poplar urn has 4 screws holding the bottom on and a plastic bag with a twist tie inside. If only I had known this is all there was to it. Anyway, I am waiting for the finish to dry currently so I can't post pics but It looks a million times better. Its still simple but at least it was built with quality and love for my friend. Again thank you all for your very kind words and advice. Especially you Luke. Even though things didn't work out as planned I really appreciate your effort and going above and beyond for a fellow creeker.

Bill

[Jack Harper]

Bill,

Sorry for your loss and troubles. I thought I would mention what you probably already know. On the failed Saturday deliveries, I believe the shipping company waives the shipping fee if you ask, since they dropped the ball. As for the Colorado urns, you might want to contact them and let them know they will arrive too late and ask what they want you to do. Usually when it is the shipping companies fault, they have you reject the delivery forcing the shipping company to return the items to the shipper. This will at least reduce some of the overwhelming cost you have been laying out.