Casket: Beginnings

I have made a couple of boxes in the past, but it’s been several years since my last one. I originally conceived of this casket as a secret project, but I decided that I liked it enough that I was going to keep it for myself. This means I can go ahead and start making progress posts.

At right you can see the initial concept. I collected a bunch of pictures and tried to find elements that I thought would go together in a plausible fashion. In particular, I liked this one, though we will see later that my interpretation of it was flawed.

Almost from the start I started changing my plans. At first I wanted to just have a hasp and staple, with a separate padlock or loop of wire or whatever to hold it closed, so that the recipient wouldn’t have to keep track of a key. Unfortunately, after my survey of extant pieces, I saw that virtually all of them had an integral lock (except this one). Fortunately, I really enjoy making locks, so I amended my plan.

Some of my materials stash has gotten low, so I had to actually buy some things. For the hardware I got some 22ga steel and a piece of round stock to make into the bolt for the lock. Later, I visited the local architectural salvage place and got a couple old skeleton keys, which are much nicer to look at than the sort you can find at the big home improvement stores.

Updated: March 8, 2013 — 5:54 am