A New finished project, in More ways than one

[RichardA]

Most all of you saw the Final Gift for my Wife when she passed. She and I agreed that I would build her final resting place.  It was a painful and joyous experience.   Since then I pondered what was next for me, being alone and old with only a house mouse to share my days.   After  4 or 5 months of mourning and praying, and crying, I thought I could help other people with the expense of buying a casket.  On average, caskets run about $2500.00 and the sky's the limit from there.

We have a local sales site, somewhat like Craigslist, but it's just for Middle Tennessee. You can find anything you want on that site, and it's mostly nice local country folk, for the most part.  So, I put an ad with a couple of pictures of the casket I built for my wife.  It got a ton of hits, but it took a few months before anyone called.  We talked, and he drove 30 miles to come talk with me and tell me what he wanted done.  His idea was he wanted just a plain Pine box, with the exception that he wanted it made out of Cedar.  The reason was he had a source for inexpensive Cedar and a source for drying that Cedar.  It was coming from his property, which made it personal.  What he wanted from me was the labor to construct it.  We talked about my hourly rate, and settled on what amount of time I would have in it and we agreed on a price.  He then told me, that he really wanted two done. One each for him and his wife. They're just simple nice church going folks and felt that the trees were his and he didn't want anything fancy.  I can do "not" fancy.  So he went about getting the trees cut, milled and dried, I took some time, and life has a way of interrupting the flow of things.  I had a horrible back surgery, and when I was just about ready to start, he broke some bones in his foot.

After we were both healed for the most part, he brought the wood.  Nice tight Cedar, 1" thick 6" wide and more or less 8' long. The frustration for me is that there was an enormous amount of sap wood, and I wanted to try and use as little of that as possible.  With Cedar, your gonna get sapwood no matter what you try to do.   In the process of constructing these I was very choosy with the boards, and as I was putting things together, I invited him down several times to get a feel for the process.  Each time he dropped by, he wanted to make a change about design. Since the changes he wanted were in front of what I was already doing, it wasn't a major problem.   But I told him finally, "every time you come here you add more time in the construct and your cost is going up each time".  He said okay, just add it to my tab.

The final construct is large box joints at all four corners, with all the joints pinned with contrasting dowels, a small piece of trim on the side that can hardly be seen. Hand rails that I had to make extra, because in the start of this build I had told him I had some Poplar just the perfect size for the rails.  He wanted Cedar.  So Cedar he got   The insides are finished with one coat of satin poly, the exterior has a base coat of satin poly and two coats of gloss poly.  And they are for the most part, plain caskets  They are dried and cured and he's coming this week, to pick them up one at a time.  He's going to store them in a room in his house that is climate controlled, then he has a friend in the cardboard business that is going to double wrap them and seal them close til they are needed.  All this because Cedar "sucks", to work with, sucks moisture and twists and warps like a pole dancer.   But here they are.   Comments are welcome.   Oh, and since he and his wife have been married more than 50 years, I figured they kinda like each other, so I added one single adornment on the lid of each one at no charge.

[..Kev]

Super nice!

[treeslayer]

Very nice work Rick, I’m sure they appreciate the great work you did, and maybe it will generate more orders for you 

[Tom King]

I've been a pallbearer more times than I even remember, and I don't remember a single one of the caskets, because they didn't really matter.  I would always remember this one, because it does matter.

[RichardA]

2 minutes ago, Tom King said:

I've been a pallbearer more times than I even remember, and I don't remember a single one of the caskets, because they didn't really matter.  I would always remember this one, because it does matter.

If you know the person or people, it always matters.  Thanks Tom.

[Coop]

Well done bud and hard fought. I’m sure building these two reminded you of the one you built for your love? The heart is a neat added touch. Having worked with it, how do you like cedar ? 

[Coop]

1 hour ago, Tom King said:

I've been a pallbearer more times than I even remember, and I don't remember a single one of the caskets, because they didn't really matter.  I would always remember this one, because it does matter.

@Tom King, go back a year or so and look at the one he built for his wife. Helluva an undertaking. 

[Mark J]

Rick, that's a great job.  And what a fantastic idea you've come up with.  

[Woodenskye]

Rick really great job!

[wtnhighlander]

Nice work, Rick. And a great service to offer folks. I kind of like the way cedar sapwood streaks run through.

Would you mind sharing any build details, hardware and such? I'm curious about the handrail attachments and lid closure, specifically.

[RichardA]

38 minutes ago, wtnhighlander said:

Nice work, Rick. And a great service to offer folks. I kind of like the way cedar sapwood streaks run through.

Would you mind sharing any build details, hardware and such? I'm curious about the handrail attachments and lid closure, specifically.

There's really not to much hardware, just the 5" bolts that attach the handrails to the case. I run them through a base that keeps the rails 2" away from the case. They are stainless, so there's a decent look to them.  The lid is a slide on, from the pic's you can see a guide attached to the lid that fits tightly along the side of the lid. To make the lid slide easier, I simply added Johnson wax.  There are 10 counter sunk holes in the lid top to anchor the lid after the consumer is inside.  3 Along each side, and 2 on each end. One other point, is when I made the sides and ends, I ran a dado 2" up from the bottom of each side to accept a 3/4" piece of plywood, then turned the case over and added a 2" by 1" strip along the inside of the bottom for added support for the bottom.    Here in Tennessee, the law is, that anyone can make a casket. However it can be rejected by the funeral home for it being unsafe during transport. They can reject it if they feel the ends or bottom will fail and the consumer falls out.  So, I go out of my way to over engineer each one so that doesn't happen. 

[Tom King]

9 hours ago, RichardA said:

If you know the person or people, it always matters.  Thanks Tom.

I was talking about the caskets.  I always knew the person, but the bought caskets never seemed to mean anything, at least, not to me.

8 hours ago, K Cooper said:

@Tom King, go back a year or so and look at the one he built for his wife. Helluva an undertaking. 

Yes, I remember that one very well!

[RichardA]

7 hours ago, Mark J said:

Rick, that's a great job.  And what a fantastic idea you've come up with.  

Having seen the Caskets in a funeral home, I realized why they are so expensive. It's an assembly line production, so there are a bunch of bored employees adding a piece here and a piece there, and there's no emotional involvement.  I'm involved and therein lies the difference.  And I can make them less expensive. Especially with a  Grade A wood supplier like Spanky available to me.  

[davewyo]

Richard, everyone knows you have a heart of gold.

[Chestnut]

You did a beautiful job Rick. Simple words cannot convey how amazing this is.

[Mark J]

You know, since you seem to be looking at this as a potential business, have you considered offering cremation urns?  A lot of woodturners make them, but it certainly doesn't have to be round.  Maybe it's a regional thing, but there seems to be some demand, and not just for people, but pets.  

[JohnG]

1 hour ago, Mark J said:

You know, since you seem to be looking at this as a potential business, have you considered offering cremation urns?  A lot of woodturners make them, but it certainly doesn't have to be round.  Maybe it's a regional thing, but there seems to be some demand, and not just for people, but pets.  

+1 A nice lidded box would probably be popular. 

The casket looks very nice, and I can imagine that it is very meaningful to the customer to be involved in the process and have more input on the design than picking one out from the “standard” options. 

[RichardA]

2 hours ago, Mark J said:

You know, since you seem to be looking at this as a potential business, have you considered offering cremation urns?  A lot of woodturners make them, but it certainly doesn't have to be round.  Maybe it's a regional thing, but there seems to be some demand, and not just for people, but pets.  

I was just at my eye Doc's office for my annual exam..[New glasses enroute...Again] and she and I got into a heavy conversation about urns and more about pet caskets. She is going to have a friend of hers get in touch with me about pet caskets.  Who knows, I may have put myself in the death business accidentally.  Oh well, a buck is a buck, and sometimes a deer.

[Mark J]

@RichardA, you might find this guy's web page interesting:

https://vanduynwoodwork.com/urns-for-sale/

He posted on the AAW site.  Among other things he makes cremation urns.

[RichardA]

29 minutes ago, Mark J said:

@RichardA, you might find this guy's web page interesting:

https://vanduynwoodwork.com/urns-for-sale/

He posted on the AAW site.  Among other things he makes cremation urns.

Interesting site. But if you remember when you were here, there was no room for a Lathe, so turned urns are out.  However boxes can be used as well.  I have a Cherry and Curly Maple one I now use for cigars that's going to used for my resting place.  But thank's.

[Mark J]

No, I was thinking about boxes.  He has some information about sizes I thought would be helpful.

[wtnhighlander]

9 hours ago, RichardA said:

 However it can be rejected by the funeral home for it being unsafe during transport. They can reject it if they feel the ends or bottom will fail and the consumer falls out. 

Seriously? I've seen what the homes use for temp transport from the morgue.

Particleboard and staples.

[JohnG]

I’d imagine they only get rejected if they are made from cardboard and duct tape. 

[RichardA]

2 hours ago, wtnhighlander said:

Seriously? I've seen what the homes use for temp transport from the morgue.

Particleboard and staples.

From the morgue to the funeral home is not considered a casket, it's merely transport.  I've seen them use an ambulance type gurney for that transport.  Caskets are in the public eye so they have to be somewhat safer from failure.

[Bankstick]

Beautiful work and finish. I was a pallbearer in a funeral that had a wood casket. Weighed a ton. The funeral staff put me at the back end. The haul was uphill and all the weight shifted to us on the end.