Where do you even start? What wood do you use? Does it have to be fancy? Does it need brass handles and a satin lining, or is a box a box?
Here's the short answer: building a casket is a lot more forgiving than most people assume, and a lot more meaningful than most people expect. You don't need a shop full of machinery. You don't need to be a finish carpenter. You need lumber, basic tools, a plan that's actually been used to build real caskets — and a reason. Most people who end up here already have the reason. That's usually what brings them to this page in the first place.
What you actually need
At the most basic level, a casket is six panels joined into a box, with a lid that either lifts off or hinges open. That's it. That's the whole idea, stripped down. Everything after that — the joinery, the interior, the finish — is where the plan you're following actually matters, because the difference between a casket that holds together and one that doesn't comes down to details most people wouldn't think to ask about until it's too late to fix them.
You'll need:
- Plywood or solid lumber — the amount depends on the design, usually somewhere around 80-100 board feet
- Basic hand or power tools: a saw, a drill, clamps, something to sand with
- Hardware — hinges, handles, latches, depending on the style
- A dimensioned plan with real cut lists, not a sketch on a napkin
- Time. Give yourself more of it than you think you need.
Why plans matter more than people think
I've heard from more than one person who tried to eyeball it — figured a casket was just a big box, how hard could it be? It's not that it's hard, exactly. It's that the margin for error is smaller than it looks, and you usually only get one attempt at this, for reasons that don't need spelling out. A joint that would be a minor annoyance on a bookshelf becomes a real problem here. That's the whole reason our plans exist: real dimensions, real joinery, worked out through actual builds — ours and the people we've taught — not guesswork.
Where to go from here
If you're ready to build, browse our blueprint plans — six designs, each with full dimensions and a cut list, starting with digital download the moment you buy. If you want more guidance than a plan alone gives you — real instruction, walked through step by step — Caskets 101 is the deeper version of this page, built as an actual course.
Whatever brought you here, we're glad you found your way to it. This work deserves to be done with care, and we built this site to help you do exactly that.