Tips For Making Your Own Coffin & Why You Should Do It Now

The New Zealanders have started a new tradition of DIY coffins. This idea was born out of the desire to have a fully customized coffin themed for the founder of the Kiwi Coffin Club, Katie Williams.

Building your own coffin has many benefits which range from the cost-saving or environmental element of doing it yourself to the psychological boost it gives you in accepting your own mortality. In addition, it’s a worthwhile project which gives you new skills & a new perspective about the future.

What Katie Williams wanted was something that was certainly not for sale in the mass market. She wanted her coffin to be themed after Elvis Presley, her life long passion.

Perhaps you are not looking for a specific theme. Or perhaps you might just be trying to be thrifty and not burying a lot of money, so to speak. Or perhaps you would just like to have a meaningful project to make sure you have input and lessen the burden of your passing.

There might be a hundred reasons why you might be interested in building your own coffin. Since you are here, you most likely have a motive but want to know if there are any tips that can help you get started or even to make your decision.

So here are a few tips.

Consult with the local government and funeral director to check local laws and rules on using home-made coffins/caskets.
Choose a coffin or a casket: coffins are cheaper because they use less material but require more skill to build.
Choose your material: wood is cheaper, and MDF is the cheapest , much more so than then pine or poplar (softwoods) and harder woods like oak and walnut.
Choose to go green (or not); avoid metals, glues, and treatments.
Make sure you have the tools; cutting tools, like saws and chisels, and hammers and mallets,
Work off a plan: buy or draw real blueprints to follow.
Make sure you have a place to put it until you need it.
Test it out: Make sure that it can handle the weight of a body for transportation from A to B.

Why Should you do it?

From the words of Katie Williams “death is pretty natural” and building your own coffin can be a healthy way to come to terms with our own mortality.

No only is it incredibly therapeutic, it can be economically beneficial as well as give the builder a meaningful project. In addition to this, it can be a fun group activity which you can share with friends, children and even grandchildren. I think that this trend which has been championed by the Kiwi coffin club is a very interesting one to be a part of.

How to get started?

Beginning this project and the time it takes to complete it really depends on your experience, access to the right tools and materials and your ability to store the finished product.

As a beginner

If you have never built something like this, but let’s face it most of us haven’t, then you should seek out the right assistance. If you don’t have a family member who is knowledgeable about DIY then consider taking a short foundation course in working with the material of your choice (more on that later).

Rent the tools rather than buying them. If you don’t have the intention of building multiple coffins or caskets, then don’t feel like you need to buy a lot of equipment. Go to your local hardware store or warehouse and you can normally get very competitive rental rates.

As consider the space you’ll need to build the coffin or casket. If you don’t have a garage, then you can ask a friend, neighbor or relative to loan out theirs. You can even contact your local high school and see if you could build it in their woodwork shop.

If you don’t have the tools or materials to hand and are feeling a little bit overwhelmed with the experience you can even go and speak to your local joinery company and ask them to help you build it, them may even be able to get you involved with some of the hands-on tasks.

Make your plans clear

Some people are terribly squeamish about death and they may not understand why you have taken this practical step to your own funeral or that of a loved one. Some may even not want to see the finished product having around your home.

In order to bring people on board, when necessary, and to ensure that your wishes are carried out just be open and honest with them. If you are doing this for financial reasons, then explain that the same can be said for any other personal you have for building your own coffin.

Most importantly of all, include the desire to be buried in your DIY coffin in your will and letter to the executor of that will.

Also confirm that you can be buried in the type of coffin you have in mind by consulting with the cemetery of your choice and local funeral home. Don’t get pressured into purchasing something you don’t need to. If you don’t know exactly what to ask when pre-planning your funeral, check out my full article on this topic here.

Coffin or casket?

Many Americans and Westerners use the term casket for funerals, and the word coffin is allocated to Halloween themed classroom worksheets but do you actually know the difference?

Simply, caskets are rectangular where coffins have that tapered shape that is well known in the films and stories.

So why the difference? It is my belief, that caskets were the originators, as a rectangular box is much easier to build, but then “coffin” builders started noticing that they could reduce the amount of wood used if they tapered the coffin toward the feet and head, and thus the coffin was born. After all, why bury more wood than you need to?

For centuries, (again my opinion) the coffin was used, when some funeral director, playing into the American trend seen in cars, TVs, and houses, brought the idea “bigger is better” to the coffin industry, and the casket was resurrected.

In recent years, Western culture has begun to abhor the wasteful ways of the “bigger is better” mantra and has redeveloped a minimalistic ideal.

Coffins certainly use fewer materials, and this can both save you some money as well as maintain a Green approach.

Caskets or Coffins for a beginner builder?

Despite the environmental and economical benefits of opting for a coffin, it has to be said that building a basic wooden box, i.e. a casket, is far easier than perfecting the tapered design of your average coffin.

If you are doing this for more than just economic reasons, then you may find that building a more straight-forward design can help you deal with your own mortality just as much as a more ambitious project.

Buying a custom kit

So if you don’t think you can handle this job, but you still want the benefits of a DIY coffin there are quite a few retailers out there that produce DIY coffin kits. If you can assemble an IKEA bookcase, you can probably handle one of these kits.

Here are my top picks:

Choosing the right Materials

The material you chose can have three major effects on your DIY coffin (or casket). First, it can alter the cost greatly. Second, it can affect the durability quite significantly. Thirdly, it can influence the difficulty factor of the build itself.

The main two materials often used are wood, and metal and I will discuss them in more detail below. But, let’s discuss a few alternative materials first; fabrics and cardboard.

Non-traditional coffin materials

Fabrics

Many cultures around the world, have the tradition or history of wrapping the dead in linens for burial. This could certainly be a valid consideration, but we are talking about making a coffin-like shroud here.

So how can this relate? Consider leather working. A durable, but biodegradable, coffin could be fashioned out of hardened leather but I would suspect that it would still lack the rigidity of what we have come to expect from a coffin.

Nevertheless, this could be a perfect alternative if you are considering a cremation instead of a burial. Also, if you are good with a needle and thread you could also sew, knit or quilt a suitable burial shroud which could be used either in a green funeral using a rental coffin (see my articles about renting coffins or cremations without coffins) or for a more traditional cremation.

Cardboard

Finally, we have cardboard. Now we are not talking old pizza boxes. Cardboard technology has come along way. Uline is a company that produces high weight cardboard sheets that are ⅝” thick and can withstand 1100 lbs of weight.

This product can certainly hold out for the funeral. Cardboard has two major benefits; ease of workability and biodegradability. It might be the cheapest, greenest, and easiest material choice if you can get past the stereotype of being buried in a cardboard box.

Using metal as a building material

Many caskets these days are made of metal. Metals are durable and relatively easy to work with for someone that is trained in welding, otherwise not so much. Metal coffins offer a sense of permanency as well as a taste of luxury. They are lighter than other materials and thus allow them to be moved more readily. They give you the benefit of both worlds.

Types of metal used

Most caskets offered are made of, in order of cheapest to most expensive options, steel, stainless steel, or precious metals including copper, bronze or gold. Aluminum seems to be a less popular option in the USA, but there are aluminum coffins for export from China you can consider.

Tools needed

Anyone considering metal as their option will most likely be looking at welding as their main joining method. Although brackets and screws could also be an option. Welding is not something that anyone can just pick up in a weekend by watching a Youtube video or two.

Therefore, if you are really determined to have a metal coffin or casket, then do consider taking a course on the skills you will need or find someone who can do the work for you.

There are quite a few tools, all quite costly, that are needed, and they all come with dangers. For this reason, I won’t go into detail on the tools needed and leave them in the hands of the already capable metalworkers. Just make sure you really research the process and get professional advice before you begin.

Using wood as a building material

Anyone that is seriously considering a DIY coffin will most likely be considering, and wisely so, wood as their material.

Wood offers a traditional look while being environmentally conscience, (depending on some elements). Wood is much lighter than metal, but still offers strength. But wood does lack the perpetuity of metal, although some woods certainly last longer than others.

Of course, once buried this isn’t of great concern, but in terms of storage you want the coffin to last as long as you do!

Coincidentally, the cost of most wood is proportional to its strength, with a few exceptions for rare woods, that are not considered under the umbrella term “lumber”. I will list a few wood choices, that are common, but touching on all wood options is beyond the scope of this article.

Types of wood to consider for coffin/casket construction:

Composite woods

MDF

Cost: Low

Ease of use: Beginner

How green?: Contains resin/ coating

Medium-density fibreboard (MDF) is by far the cheapest option but it might be a stretch to define it as wood. Basically, it is sawdust, or fibers, that have reformed into boards with the use of resin high temperature and pressure.

MDF has some strength, but can also be considered the weakest of the “woods”. Most manufacturers that use MDF, for furniture and other things that need to take a load, coat the product with sealers and strengthening coatings as well as employ engineering that offers added strength.

MDF, however, is easy to work with and can even be cut with a utility knife depending on its thickness. But most people will elect to use normal woodworking tools which will be touched on later.

The Kiwi Coffin Club suggests MDF as an option probably due it it’s cost and ease of use.

Whether MDF is Green or not is a consideration of what resin is used in its production, as well as the coating you choose to apply.

Plywood

Cost: low

Ease of use: beginner

How green?: contains glue

Plywood is a strong board that is made of sheets of thin boards (plies) that are glued together. Their grains are rotated 90 degrees to avoid weak spots. Plywood requires the tools of any of the woods and but is certainly cheaper than solid planks of wood.

Plywood tends to be an eyesore and lack the elegance one might be looking for in their coffin. However, this might not be an issue if they are planning on painting it. Actual wood trim can also be used to hide the layers that are seen on the edges of plywood.

Plywood is certainly a consideration as it will undoubtedly be an upgrade from MDF. Also, the entire coffin does not need to be made of plywood. Perhaps the larger plane could be plywood and thus lower the cost burden of large pieces of wood being purchased.

Plywood’s Green consideration falls under the same scrutiny of MDF. It falls in the glue that was used to adhere the plies.

Using Natural Wood

From this point on I will talk about solid woods. Solid woods are all equally green in that you need only consider your coating and glues used. The following list is by strength (and probably cost) going from the weakest (and probably cheapest) onward to the most durable. After we discuss the woods, we will consider the tools.