Homemade Caskets

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You can create simple,beautiful and inexpensivewooden caskets.
Story and photos by Steve Maxwell

Back in 1995, I attended the funeral of a well-loved gentleman who spent his 85-plus years living in the same modest country home where he grew up. He was a craftsman, skilled with wood, stone and soil, frugal as old-timers often are and simple in his tastes. But when I went to pay my last respects, I thought I'd somehow walked into the wrong funeral parlor. His casket was huge, streamlined, made of shiny blue fiberglass and sporting more-than-ample fake gold hardware. It looked like something designed in a NASA wind tunnel. I learned later that this space-pod-to-eternity had cost $5,000, and that was the biggest shock of all. I couldn't have been any more surprised if my old friend had leaped out of the casket wearing a silver jumpsuit and sequined go-go boots.

But caskets don't have to contradict the life of the person whose body they contain. Building a modest casket yourself (or hiring a carpenter—see Page 63, "If You Don't Know How to Hammer") is really very easy. Besides saving a bundle of money, a handmade casket can reflect and celebrate the life of a specific person, providing a reminder of happy things at a time when sadness holds the upper hand. The best caskets are joyful epitaphs in wood. Several options exist below for personalizing this project.

Advanced woodworkers may want to build from solid wood, and the drawings on Page 64 show you how to proceed. But if you don't have the tools or advanced skills to build the solid wood option, you can use hardwood veneer plywood, following the drawings at right. Regardless of the approach you choose, building a casket is engaging, well within the reach of those with moderate skills, and a great way to be reminded of the need to live well now. Take it from me, there's nothing like building your own casket to be powerfully reminded of your own mortality.

I'm focusing on hardwood veneered plywood construc tion for two reasons. First, it makes this project easier than using solid wood, opening the handmade casket option to more people. It also eliminates the need for equipment-intensive operations like milling and edge-gluing, while making the most frugal use of high-grade hardwood forest resources. Veneered plywood also is widely available and economical compared to many sources of solid wood.

If you are building a casket for a particular person, make the inside dimensions about 4 inches wider than the shoulder span and 5 inches longer than standing height.