Mark House has shifted his business sights from the skies to the ground.

The precision welder is using the expertise he developed fabricating aircraft parts to manufacture metal caskets a business House figures is more reliable than one based on Pentagon contracts.

Or as he puts it: “Everybody dies.”

House’s Lancaster-based Winthorp Industries Inc. sells about 40 caskets a month and is growing 25 percent annually. House opened a retail operation called Crescent Caskets in Compton about a year ago and plans to open another store next year.

It’s a tough business, with retail competition from heavyweights like Costco Wholesale Corp. and soon Wal-Mart Stores Inc. not to mention the funeral home chains, which sell 90 percent of the nation’s caskets.

But Winthorp is vertically integrated, from steel fabrication and interior upholstery to retail sales. That keeps costs down and means the company can sell caskets at the Compton shop for $1,000 to $1,500 and stay afloat.

One legacy from Winthorp’s metal working days: a coating process that adheres water-based color powder to electrified metal. It allows customized paint jobs along the lines of a hot rod.

Next month, House plans to introduce digital printing, which will allow customers to adorn their caskets with photos, portraits, landscapes or any digitized image at about half the $3,000 he charges for airbrushing.

“People want caskets that are personalized, that are more a reflection of who that person was,” House said. “They don’t want cookie cutter funerals anymore.”