A sign on the door of the NSW group says: "Don't use machinery unless you know how!" The shed's members, mostly retirees, meet here amongst the sawdust every week to tinker and talk.

The workbench, however, is pristine, with a carefully sanded wooden box sitting on top of a white sheet.

A bit bigger than a shoebox, it is a casket for a baby.

John Gibson was moved to make a coffin after hearing from a family friend, who paid $1000 for her baby's casket at a funeral home.

"She was a single mother, and I just couldn't help her out at the time," Gibson, a former dementia worker, tells AAP.

Some of the shed's members know the lingering grief after the death of a baby and hope to make more caskets for low-income families.

"(A friend) had a loss 40 years ago and she still celebrates his birthday. He only lasted two days.

"It affects people very strongly."

Men's Sheds have been bringing men together to work on community-focused projects across regional and rural Australia since the 1990s.

There are about 1270 around the nation, or more sheds than McDonald's restaurants, as Australian Men's Shed Association executive officer David Helmers likes to point out.

The "shedders'" projects are known for their country quirk, like coffins made by a Tasmanian chapter; picnic tables for a bushfire-ravaged community in Victoria's Gippsland; and a war memorial sculpted from 600 metres of bird wire on Queensland's Bribie Island.

But their creations are not the point, Helmers says.

The sheds aim to prevent men from sinking into social isolation, a "health by stealth" strategy.

"Our motto is 'men don't talk face-to-face, they talk shoulder-to-shoulder'.

"Isolation is one of the key contributors to poor health in men. It's a trigger point that can lead to substance abuse and depression.

"We get a dozen blokes together, put them in a room with an old lawnmower, some tools and tell them to fix it.

"You come back in an hour's time and the lawnmower won't be fixed, but they will have made friends."

The Australian Men's Shed model has been embraced overseas, particularly in the UK. A recent study found members report improved perspectives on their health and better recoveries from illness.

One man told the Glasgow Caledonian University researchers he was drinking heavily before finding the comfort of a shed.

"If the Men's Shed wasn't here, I wouldn't be here to tell the story. I'd have drunk myself to death," he said, according to the study published in the BMC Public Health journal last year.

Others said they learnt about strokes and heart attack risks from shed members, while one man was able to talk openly about his depression.

"(Men) don't want to show their weakness. I've started talking to people who've been through depression, or know where I'm coming from."

In Australia, the mental health organisation Beyond Blue has long backed the movement, which is partly funded by the state and federal governments.

Gibson says the shoulder-to-shoulder mantra plays out in the Dubbo shed and extends to the community.

Locals are enthusiastic about the casket project, helping people talk about an often unspeakable subject.

A women's group will sew pillows and linings, businesses have donated money, and the shed will ensure local funeral homes' trade is not affected if the project takes off.

Gibson says the best work happens at the shed's "smoko" breaks.

"Some men are quite open about their problems, but some aren't, some will try to hide it.

"But we always seem to have a way of getting it out."

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beyondblue 1300 22 4636

Australian Associated Press