Thread: Best way to make a Coffin can anyone help?

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I am planning to build this coffin and add a wiper motor, light and PIR as effects, such that when the PIR switch is triggered the coffin will "slam" open and closed with a very bright light eminating from inside...

Well something that's nice about a cardboard coffin is after halloween it folds up! A solid, wooden, casket is a major space investment storage-wise.

I'm going to try a collapsable casket this year. I'll be cutting the profile of the casket out of 1/4 inch plywood, but the length of it will be nothing but air. I've discovered that certain thick plastic bags shrink when heat is applied and hold their shape when cooled so I'll mock up the shape with scrap, heat-shrink on enough layers so that it holds it's shape and remove it after halloween. I'll keep the profile pieces and ditch the rest. Come next year I'll just shrink more plastic over it. Of course this only works on a modern casket, an old toe pincher would look odd made out of plastic.

I love the link for the fence wood coffin. I've really come to love that stuff this year. I did a mini coffin and my zombie chow food box out of the stuff. Cheap, pressure treated and already rough looking.

If I can find space for it there might be one of those full sized coffins in next year's haunt.....

Last year was my first haunt but I wanted a coffin for my graveyard. I knew that building a full size coffin would be a problem to store so I came up with the idea of a part coffin. The lid was built from some pallet wood, the sides from some 1" ply that I just happened to have on hand. the back and base was some 3/8 ply again that was lying around. most of the wood had been exposed to the elements so had a nice aged look. storage is not a problem .. I left it out by the shed all year so it's aged a little more .. this year I am adding some faux chain and padlock ... not sure if my cheapo prop will be the tenant this year but probably a little to late to think of a change ... maybe next year ...lol ... anyway, here's a pic of the result

I am planning on using my coffin as storage for other halloween props. So it really isn't taking up any more room than the other containers I would normally use.

Originally Posted by meltdown211

I built mine out of plywood, they are strong and are very inexpensive to build. I followed this tutorial and after building the first one, the others were a snap.

Check this out: http://64.226.23.133/woodycarr/scare...ct_coffin.html

Here are the ones I built (with all the rest of my crap)
http://s211.photobucket.com/albums/bb258/meltdown211/

I built this - it was easy and came out great....my 6 year old son actually helped w/ assembly and it still took less then a day....

Originally Posted by berkisho

I built this - it was easy and came out great....my 6 year old son actually helped w/ assembly and it still took less then a day....

I built one as well



My friend already had a bunch of old weathered fence boards, I already had the wood glue, and all I needed was the screws (I would have had those too but my deck screws were way too long). I would like to point out that as the instructions say this would be a lot easier to do with a table saw. I used a circular saw for most of the cutting and it took quite a long time to do. Either way I am happy with the results. Next year something will be filling it. Not sure what...maybe I'll get a ToT that I can stuff in there

Thanks for the great ideas everyone, I'll have to try these.

This might be alittle late, but I thought I would chime in on this.

You can build an old fashioned toe pincher coffin at allmost zero cost, find a construction site, grab some scrap OSB board (chip board) and some scrap 1x2's or 2x2's (notice I said scrap, dont steal, its not worth it)

build the coffin from the OSB board as a base, then cover it with old worn cedar fence pickets with liquid nails and 1'' screws, you wont be able to see the OSB board board when your done, it will look like its built from the cedar and it will be strong enough to last YEARS as a display and a storage container.

getting the fence pickets takes some work, I was lucky enough to find someone who was tearing down thier entire cedar fence, I filled my pickup truck to overflowing with the stuff, I think I ended up with over 4oo boards.

if you cant find any old wood, either just spraypaint the OSB or get some new cedar pickets from your local home store..

if your interested, I can get you some inside/out pics of my coffins

Originally Posted by Hellspawn

This might be alittle late, but I thought I would chime in on this.

You can build an old fashioned toe pincher coffin at allmost zero cost, find a construction site, grab some scrap OSB board (chip board) and some scrap 1x2's or 2x2's (notice I said scrap, dont steal, its not worth it)

Agreed. Only take from the scrap pile. The workers sometimes have to pay for replacement wood.

At the same time, The $25 coffin I made is constructed out of material that is meant to be left outside (OSB is not- it can break with very little stress when wet). Time is money and it is far quicker for me to drive the 1 mile to HD or Lowes and get quality material than to scour construction sites hoping I might get lucky.

Just a thought