Posted by:
ArtInScales
at Tue Mar 4 23:42:24 2008 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by ArtInScales ]
The cage looks good. I'm curious how the latex will hold up, I never tried it. If you use polyurathan make sure use read the directions on full cure time. Most that I have seen takes 30 days to cure, same with silicon. They may be dry to the touch, but still give off fumes and in an enclosure that could be deadly.
You don't need tempered glass, I understand you got it for free and in that case I would use it, but for the next cages you can use 1/8in or 1/4in plexiglas. We use 1/8in on ours but it's only about 10in high and 3ft wide, any more than that and I would use 1/4in.
It looks like the door is on top and windows on the front. If you are going to stack them you will need to put the doors on front. Burms feel more comfortable not having anything reach in from the top anyway.
Mike touched on how we heat our cages, we make ours out of 3/4in melamine. I use a router to remove 3/8in of material from the outside bottom of the cage and staple the flexwatt to the underside. We put the thermostat probe between the flexwatt and the bottom of the cage, then cover all of it with reflectix. You can get it at Home Depot, it's located with the insulation products. It works pretty good at forcing the heat up into the cage. Our big cages are 7 x 2 1/2 x 1 1/2 feet. We use 4 11 x 12 flexwatt panels, 2 rows of 2.
I'm not blasting on your design, just making suggestions.
Here is a picture of some of our cages.
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Randy and Michelle
Art In Scales
(719) 439-4199
info@artinscales.com
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RE: My 1st attempt at building an enclos - ArtInScales, Tue Mar 4 23:42:24 2008 