For that to be legal I would imagine the uncle would have to have written it in his will

So the respect option is the most likely

How long does this take? Does it have to be dead? Asking for a friend.

A couple days. And not technically, but the box needs to be quite strong. Plus there’s some extra prep work.

kinda gruesome for a joke but you did ask

Can... Can people just... have their relatives' bones? To make things with?

My question is, who in their right mind is carving out their relative's bones from the meat?

Betcha this guy's a hit at all the parties and with all the ladies.

The skeleton, as Prince Midnight tells Guitar World, belonged to his uncle, Filip, who passed away in the ‘90s in Greece.

“He originally donated his skeleton to the local college and was medically prepared for the school,” Midnight says.

“After 20 years, he ended up in a cemetery my family had to pay rent on. Like, literally in a wooden box. It’s a big problem in Greece because orthodoxy religion doesn’t want people cremated.”

Prince Midnight proceeded to contact the proper authorities, including the state department and state attorney’s office, in order to repatriate his uncle’s remains.

Here’s him playing Dark Throne’s Transylvanian Hunger on it, as linked in the article. (it’s a little hilarious that this is marked “for kids” by YouTube)

concentrating on this reasonable question is good, so i can stop thinking about the origin of the topic.
Burying does not get rid of the bones, and in many cultures (past and present) the dead stay in the ground only for a limited time (most people can't afford to pay a grave site in perpetuity), then their (then clean) bones are moved to a smaller permanent storage, or apparently made into a guitar.

Ah, of course! I was thinking cremation would make the bones brittle, but unburying them makes more sense.

When did his uncle die? How long does it take to become a skeleton?