Reptile & Amphibian Forums

They just keep having babies. I'm adding 13 new boxs to my collection. I made 3 2x4x18, 2 2x4x12, 4 2x18x12, and 4 2x2x12

Now for the questions from the peanut gallery...
What’s that gray stuff you painted the floor and lower part of the walls with?
How did you mount the glass in the door frames?
Thanks for sharing!

That grey stuff is just regular old oil base paint. Cured and dryed in the overwhelming Florida sunshine. Haven't mounted the glass yet, except for the top left one (there's a 7ft boa in it)

Cool, thanks for posting.

I assume that's 3/4" ply attached with edge-joints, glued and screwed/nailed?

From the picture it looks like you build your boxes with the top and bottom panels sitting on top of the side panels. What about the back panel? Do you cut that to fit perfect inside the box or is it mounted on the outside.

Keep us posted.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

Correct, glued and nailed. The back is the same height as the sides and fites inside.

How are they heated or is whole room heated?

I mounted the glass with no hinges. To open the box, you simply turn the latches and lift the glass out.

How about this- less than hillbilly hinges! With these cages, the acrylic slips up into the top track and sets down into the bottom track. No hinges and the whole door is removed and set aside. The large door is a bit wobbly because there isn’t even a frame, but with practice it becomes pretty quick and easy. The whole thing is something of a “shield” too when removing it.

I think just because I'm from Arkansas, Most of the things I make have that MADE WITH CHAINSAW look to it.

I just ordered an alternative to pegboard - it is PVC pegboard, looks just like the stuff on your cage but made from gray PVC. I ordered some 1/8" thick sheet with 1/8" holes and some 1/4" thick sheet with 1/4" holes. I am building tops for polyethylene boxes and will be trying this material out in place of standard pegboard. The smaller boxes will have the 1/8" sheet and the larger boxes will feature the 1/4" sheet.

I'll let everyone know how it works out. Then you can do one of your pegboard cages out of PVC. BTW, this material is not very expensive. More than standard pegboard of course but not all that pricey. I am a bit surprised that the PVC cage mfgrs out there do not use it for vents and such.
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Mark

Hey I think a big part of the nice look is sanding. I don’t do sanding well. Don’t have the patience for it.
I think that pvc pegboard is great. I saw it once at a local Lowes or Home Depot, I don’t remember which. I went looking for it and then both places didn’t have it. I didn’t feel like ordering it, and I ended up with the regular stuff. So the pvc was actually the inspiration for these (I built two the same). I could see that stuff being great for cage building.
This was before the paint and stick on tile flooring installed...

The skitzo Cribo. You can see what a pain it is to paint pegboard and fill every hole with paint. It drips out the other side and then drips out the other side, then the other side, then the other... you get it. The pvc is worth it just because you don’t have to paint it!

These two pictures for amusement purposes- this is the bottom cage set up for Skitzo...

This is the cage about an hour later...

This guy lived upstairs. Note my comment about using the door as a “shield” in earlier post...

Can't wait to see your project!

I do like your cages, and the door design is simple and effective. Man, that cribo certainly rearranges things. Active snakes those indigo/cribos are.

I think what you saw at HD or Lowes was the vinyl-coated pegboard is my guess. The stuff I referred to in my other post is solid PVC plastic, with holes. The drawback is that it only glues to wood well if you use silicon adhesive, so one cannot use wood glue and be done quickly.
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Mark

where did you order PVC pegboard from? Now that you mention this, I think of all the display cases in retail environments where I've seen this stuff, and I'm thinking that it would be awesome for building cages. Much much much easier than standard pegboard, which wouldn't hold up in the humid area I live in.

How do you heat these?