Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I remember or atleast I think I do someone posting pictures along with instructions for a really nice looking custom built enclosure for adult bearded dragons. I thought I had saved the link but I guess I did not. If anyone has anything like that could they please post it? Thank you.
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0.0.1 Ball Python Pisces
0.1 Bearded Dragon Bindi

I posted directions before if you're talking about mine. Here's a pic. of ther final stacked product. Have to double check my directions anyway since some small changes were made in the final cages vs. the prototype. Let me know if this is what you were talking about.

Here it is.

Yes that is the setup that I remebered seeing. It is a very nice cage.
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0.0.1 Ball Python Pisces
0.1 Bearded Dragon Bindi

Thanks. They're great cages. I have to give thanks to Rob and Vickie Dachiu. Many of the design ideas were theirs.

Three of mine are 5’ long and the other 3 are 4’ long. I have a case of 36” Reptisun 10.0 bulbs so I wanted to use 36” fixtures in mine. That meant that it would have to be at least 36” deep to run the fixtures from front to back. If you build a 4’ cage you can just run 4’ fixtures left to right. Just make sure your inside measure is at least 4’ that means the outside measure will be at least 49 ½ wide. Melamine is ¾” thick.

Here are instructions for a 5’.

Melamine is available from Home Depot in a variety of sizes including 4 x 8 sheets. To cut melamine I use masking tape to reduce chips and you will need a circular saw blade with the most teeth possible. Home Depot sells like a 140 tooth blade for about $6 it’s marked as a plywood blade.

It’s best to start with the sides. Home Depot sells pieces of melamine that are 48” x 23 5/8. I decided that these would be my sides. I decided to play it safe (for 36” lights) and make mine 37” deep at the top. I then marked a 75 degree angle. It comes out to about 43 ¼ at the bottom. I taped where I was gonna cut and clamped the boards together, that way cutting both at the same time would make them exactly the same.

For the bottom, you will need to set the tilt on the saw at 15 degrees and cut the width to 43 ¼ on the long side. It’s easiest to just hold the sides up to it to mark it. The length of the bottom is 58 ½ to make a 5’. Melamine is ¾” thick. The sides are on the outside of the bottom, back, and top to hide the unfinished edges of the melamine. The back is 58 ½ by 22 1/8 and will sit on top of the bottom.

I bolted these pieces together with 1 5/8 course thread drywall screws every 4”. 5” is fine but I believe in overkill. Lol. You will need to drill a small pilot hole and a larger one slightly to countersink the screw heads. HD sells screw covers. I then cut the top at 58 ½ long by 37” on the short side of the 15 degree bevel. I then mounted the lights. Lot easier to do it before the top is on than working upside down in the cage later. HD sells an outside spotlight kit (white) with 2 swivel/adjustable angle sockets. I bought an extra socket to put a night bulb in too.

The top rests on the back but not the sides so you’ll need to cut some boards to hold up the front of the top while you screw the sides to it.

HD sells PVC Composite boards. On my cage the top is a 2 ½ board, the bottom is a 3 ½ board and the rest are 1 ½ boards. I attached mine using a finish nailer but you could use screws. I beveled both top and bottom boards but you don’t have to. I cut a scrap to 1 ½ and attached it to the center of my top board. This will create the space for ventilation. I then attached the 1 ½ board to this. This will hold the glass track. It’s important to attach the top glass track board to the center first because there will be some bowing of the top depending on how long the cage is. Now square up the glass opening and attached the board to the sides. Cut 1 ½ boards to fill in the remaining spaces. Then I filled the holes and painted the outside of the front boards. Then attach the glass track.

In my final product I added a 1 ¼” dowel in the center of the front to reduce stress from the weight of the cage above. A 5’ cage holds 200 lbs. of sand so the bottom cage will need to support over 500 lbs. including the weight of the cages above and sand.

The basking area is made with scrap melamine and finished with the PVC board. It has 4 built in hides. I made mine to fit 12 x 12 slate tiles. I had to cut 2. The ramp is a 16” slate tile cut to 12” wide. The “cricket corral” is 2 ½ boards screwed from the bottom up and covered with aluminum tape.

The summertime extra venting is as described below.

http://www.dachiu.com/care/venting.html

Thank you very much for the instructions.
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0.0.1 Ball Python Pisces
0.1 Bearded Dragon Bindi