Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I finally found a forum for enclosure construction!

I have been keeping snakes for about a year and a half now, became interested when a good friend asked to help build an enclosure for some snakes.

That got me interested and I am now "fully Involved" with snakes and building cages.

My good friend and fishing buddy spend many evenings in the workshop, sometimes the planning is all that gets done!

It looks like some very knowledgable individuals here, am looking forward to many discussions, hope I don't wear out my welcome!

Here are a coupke projects we have copleted;

Hey Larry,
Glad you found the site. Those are some nice looking enclosures in your pictures.

I'm wondering about the bottom two. Are they factory made enclosures that you guys refurbished or did you build them from scratch? Sorry, you can't post pictures and not give up some details....lol Are they plastic? If so, what kind? How is is connected and painted?

If they are not plastic, what are they and what type of finish is it on there?
Thanks,
Rob
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For Sale cheap: One (1) 6' 19 yr old male. Does no house work. Has no job and will complain. Constantly.
0.1 Brazilian Rainbow Boa-Ziggy
1.0 Creamscicle motley corn--Cozmo
0.1 Creamscicle corn--Wanda
0.0.1 Normal corn
0.1 Black Pine - Spazz
1.0 Eastern King-Ozy
1.0 Bearded Dragon - Gomer

Hi Rob,

Yes they are plastic, there were a couple of xpvc signs on a jobsite that were going to the dumpster so I snagged them.

The printing was just a vinyl covering so we peeled it off and had a good sheet of plastic. (two)

There were some screw holes, that is why the diamond plate is inlaid in the front to cover them. That was my neighbors idea.

We used regular pvc plumbing glue, but I need advice on a better one. It does not give that "cement weld" that you hear of for some reason. It also sets way to quickly, no time to work with the pieces. I am thinking of a thicker glue more like that "GOOP" stuff I have seen. Any help there would be great.

I tested some scraps of pvc with this glue and it did hold, but not really well.

Hi Larry,

I've seen your work on another forum and glad to see you posting here and hope you stick around. From the looks of things we could use somebody with your experience.

How big is that first cage? It looks huge in the picture.

Regarding PVC solvents, I experimented with a few methods and also found the working time to be a problem. So I took a totally opposite approach of what you are suggesting and found the thinnest and fastest evaporating PVC solvent I could find. I think it was IPS Weld-On 2007. It is thin enough that it can be injected along a clamped joint and it just wicks in and bonds the material. You don't need to apply it and then clamp the material together like you would with woodworking.

For clamping I used masking tape and woodworking corner clamps. This worked okay. What I liked better was to assemble two pieces together with small aluminum rivets and then inject the solvent along the edge. One downfall to rivets is that they don't work well with 6mm or thinner PVCX.

Now, to be totally fair I never made it as far as you did -- I just ended up with all sorts of various pieces of scrap PVC stuck together at 90* angles laying around. But I did learn a fair amount about working with the material.

But back to your idea of a thicker and slower evaporating solvent, I never tried that specifically. I'm sure IPS makes such a product but my local (at the time) plastic shop did not carry it so I never tried it.

Another option are the two-part IPS Weld-On products. They come in guns and are applied sort of like caulk. If you scroll further down you'll see one of my posts with IPS in the title. You can see what I mean there.

At any rate, I have not used these products but have heard that they are very strong. You basically use them for form the equivalent of a fillet weld. I think Boaphile used these with their first generation cages. They are expensive and time consuming to use.

Another idea is the polyurethane hot melt glues. These are supposed to stick to just about anything and offer excellent strength. I believe it requires a dedication hot melt gun, however. Again you use these to create a fillet, not to go between two surfaces like a regular adhesive.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

The thinner IPS that Chris mentioned is what I usually get my hands on, but I was suggested to look at using IPS 705, which is supposed to be a thicker more "elmers glue" like consistency. I haven't tried it yet myself but plan to order a pint to give it a try.
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Randall L Turner Jr.
Boas make the world go round.

Great idea on gluing after assembly. That would solve a lot of problems, thank you.

I will look into these different products.

By the way Rob, the second picture is a cage made of plywood, not sure if your question was about that one or not.

Thanks Chris and Randy. I am exited to start the next project.