>>I see Carpet Pythons, are they housing other species as well.



I have a pair of Irian Jaya carpet pythons, a jungle carpet, an olive python, a ball python, a boa constrictor and some womas



>>Did you special order the black melamine? If so, was it through a home improvment center or a speciality store?



I buy sheet goods from a place called Plywood and Lumber Sales in San Jose, California. They cater to professional cabinet shops, so they have white, black, almond, and oak melamine in stock in a variety of thicknesses. Their prices tend to be much better than Home Depot or lumber yards and they have better selection and quality, too!



Chances are, there's a similar shop in any large metropolitan area. It's just a matter of finding it!



>>I've thought about trying those Confirmat screws but after reading about your issues I think I'll stick with normal square drive screws.



FWIW, the Confirmat screws and RooClear glue hold extremely well! The stepped bits are a little delicate, but really not that bad. I broke them because I was in a hurry, got careless, and applied too much sideways force to the drill after it was already half-way into the pilot hole...



>>But for what it is worth, I generally find it is worth the money to buy a nice counter-sink bit. Just make sure the bit can be replaced with a normal stock size and not a proprieatary product.

>>

>>The cheap ones work fine but over time the lock screw holding the bit in place strips or something and you cannot replace the bit.



Yeah, I have some pilot drills and counter-sink attachments from Lee Valley that seem to work pretty well. The hole they drill isn't quite big enough for the cap on the Confirmat screw, but if you've got a drill with some torque (or an impact driver) it will twist the screw the extra half-turn necessary to make the head flush with the melamine.



>>I'm confused. You say you could have saved money if you had opitmized the layout, but then say you used a program.

>>

>>Are you saying you should have used different dimensions?



I built the cages in three stages. Basically, one "stack" at a time: three cages plus one cart. After finishing one stack, I'd buy more melamine and supplies, then start on the next stack.



The program optimized the layout for each stack. Even so, I did end up with some left-over melamine in a variety of useful and not so useful sizes. If I'd built all of the cages and all of the carts at one time, I wouldn't have ended up with as many off-cuts and I might have been able to buy one less sheet of melamine. Basically, the optimization of the entire project as a whole would have been slightly more efficient than optimizing the three different stages individually.



For financial and practical reasons, the staged approach was the way to go even if I spent a bit more money on wood. I didn't have the space to store 8-9 sheets of melamine. And, at around 100lbs sheet, I certainly didn't want to have to load and unload them all either

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