Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello all.. been a long time since I've built a cage.. through highschool I threw a few together with whatever was laying around.. they worked great but not very pretty.. now I have a rescued savannah who gets bullied by my original one and since I have no room for more cages the poor thing has been living in a dog carrier "a large carrier" but not good none the less. so I need to build a multiple cage system.. I'm thinking 3 cages the whole thing being about 7 foot. maybe 4ft wide.. money is tight and I know this isn't big enough for a sav but he or she is gone as soon as I find a adoptee and it will be used for blue tongue skinks... anyways cost in mind as well as cosmetics.. what would u guys recommend I use for wood? prices per sheet? I have glass that was cut for a diff project a while back so that's ready I just gotta get the tracks for it.. I have everything worked out from electrical to vents and fans... just need help with wood and paint ideas and maybe prices? I already made the control center for the whole job. looks very clean and professional.. anyways sorry for the ramble and thanks in advance.. any recommendations are also appriciated.

I know this isn't big enough for a sav but he or she is gone as soon as I find a adoptee and it will be used for blue tongue skinks... anyways cost in mind as well as cosmetics.

what would u guys recommend I use for wood? prices per sheet?

When one is looking for a combination of looks and cosmetics I almost always recommend melamine coated particle board. It is extremely cheap but is very flat and very consistent in thickness. But best is that even if you need a more durable finish, it is already finished on the outside of the cage at least which saves a lot of money.

My inclination would be to use melamine in the color of your choice and then find some sort of cheap and replaceable liner you can use while it houses the Monitor and remove when the skinks are moved in. Maybe something like that cheap tile-board you can get for about $9 per sheet.

This is not ideal for a Savannah Monitor by any means but since this is temporary housing and you desire an inexpensive but attractive enclosure I think it's the way to go.

One last comment. Don't buy the cheap thermo-foil melamine from Home Depot or other Home Centers. Instead go to a cabinet supply shop or specialty lumber yard and buy a high quality thermofused melamine product.

Not sure on prices nowadays.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

k waiting for a call on the wood from a cabinet shop.. I couldn't find any tracks for the glass except one shop can order me one set fo 48 bucks.. that is way too pricey.. any ideas on where I can get 1/4 inch glass tracks cheaper? the town I live in sucks when trying to do a project like this... oh and if the cabinet shop can't get me what I want in that malemine stuff could I use 1/2 inch mdf and paint it? what kinda paint would I use?.. thanks again.. oh I also played with some "great stuff" today.. that stuff is fun... k later guys

Outwater is the cheapest price I have seen for plastic glass track. But if you need taller doors then you might have to go with a roller track.

How tall will your doors be?

MDF would be my last choice for your cage. I would recommend a plywood instead of MDF. I'll have to think about a sealer since you're on a tight budget.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

well the glass I have is around 17inches tall. and with the two slihtly overlapping I figure about 45 inches long. is malemine hard to work with? I have no issues with taking time and predrilling and such. I'd rather do it right so it lasts as long as possible. I have plenty of silicone around here from my sump building. just dunno what's safe and what's good paint wise... gotta seal it and look half decent... all together I'd like to keep it under 200.. I have all the lighting and heating.. screws glue. silicone. glass. so I guess my shopping list is just the wood. paint and the tracks

For doors only 17" tall then you can definitely use plastic glass track. Outwater is as cheap as I have seen, although they do have a minimum order of 12'. Their prices are so cheap that even for only one cage you usually end up paying less than 4' of track from other places. Sounds like you'll need more than 4' since this is a multi-cage unit.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and look at the Plastic Sliding Door Track.

Melamine is not hard to work with, but now that you mention "I'd rather do it right so it lasts a long time" makes me think you'd be better off with plywood.

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

chris would ya make up ur mind on how I'm building my system? hah just teasin I appriciate ur advice. so what's the big diff between ply and the melamine or however ya spell it..

Plywood is a bit more forgiving and easier to work with, but not by much. It also is a better substrate for glue and holds screws better than melamine.

But what I really like about it is that you have more choices for finishes since very few things stick well to melamine. It was the "last a lifetime" comment that made me think plywood was a better choice.

To be very clear about plywood, at the lower end of the price spectrum it will not be very attractive and will still require finishing. If you pay a bit more you can get decent looking plywood but it will still need to be finished and really end up costing a lot more money.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

hmmm well do u think I can do it out of ply wood .. get the plastic tracks and put afinish on the wood all for 200 or less?

That might be pushing it. A few questions:

1) Do you already have the glass?

2) What is the design exactly? Three cages stacked on top of each other? Or is it a cage unit where the floor of one cage will be the ceiling of the cage below?

3) Are there any tools or other materials you'll need to buy?

>>hmmm well do u think I can do it out of ply wood .. get the plastic tracks and put afinish on the wood all for 200 or less?
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

1. yep. enough for 3 cages

2.still jumping from two I drew out.. both are solid units. having a space between is nice but a bit more work. so for this one I'm leaning more towards cage to cage. the floor is the ceiling.

3.I have plenty of tools and if I need something else I have a few buddies I can call on for their tools

I couldn't find a price on those tracks... I can get enough wood for about 100... no idea what to use to finish the wood with so dunno the cost there.. again chris I appriciate u letting me pick your brain on this

I think you could probably do it for $200.

I would recommend getting the basic carcass built and ordering the glass track from Outwater. 12' of upper and lower track will cost you about $7 before shipping. Super cheap.

After the carcass is built and you have the track ready to go (don't install until after the cage is sealed) you can then see what is left in the budget for sealer.

In the meantime, keep an eye open for free scraps of linoleum or other types of vinyl flooring.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

gotcha... I've never installed sliding glass doors on anything so this should be interesting... so how much taller should the inside of these cages be compared to the glass? 1/4 inch taller? more less? and what do u think about the wood thickness? half inch? 3/4??? I'm milking u for everything now. hmm how many have u built? any pics?

I only have a quick minute. The monitor on my laptop died and I'm at my wife's office tranferring files.

Go with 3/4" plywood or melamine since this is going to be a "one-piece" unit.

The last glass track I used required the glass be cut 7/16" shorter than the size of the rough opening (before installing the track).

Don't cut your glass until you get the track and see what they recommend.

I have built a ton of cages in racks, most in the 90's and I did not take a lot of pics. I'll see if I can post some next week.

>>gotcha... I've never installed sliding glass doors on anything so this should be interesting... so how much taller should the inside of these cages be compared to the glass? 1/4 inch taller? more less? and what do u think about the wood thickness? half inch? 3/4??? I'm milking u for everything now. hmm how many have u built? any pics?
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

sorry about ur comp.. I already have the glass cut just need it cut in half it was for some tanks I was gonna build for growing corals but I just used some 50 gallon tanks from my storage.. they are like 47 inches long and like 17 or 18 tall.. so I'm probably gonna wait til I get everything before I start construction so I can measure and such.. thanks again

Yeah, you should probably wait to start construction.

You could do the basic carcass work and even install the lower substrate dam. Then the only thing you would need the track for is to know what width to rip the upper lip of the cage to.

But I guess that depends on how you plan to build the cage. Regardless, there is still a lot of work you can do.

Here is a cage I built from cheap oak plywood from Home Depot. I built it for a friend using simple construction techniques so he could learn the basics of cage building. At any rate, we did not use a face frame but instead just installed ripped sections of plywood that form the upper and lower lips of the cage (they are the sections the glass track runs on).

So what I'm getting at is that if you used a similar design you could do most of the building other than ripping the upper and lower lips to size.

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

yeah.. I could start now but been fighting this flu. that and I have a few tattoos I gotta do as soon as I feel up to it. clients won't wait forever.. also gotta order a new tat machine so income comes first before hobbys.. I used this bucket of some sort of pool sealant when I built those cages years back . my dad had it laying around and I used every bit of it.. I used something simular to coat some wood aquariums last year... stuff was great but again was givn to me in a trade for some corals so I dunno exactly what its make or name of the products... was thinking that stuff would be great for the inside of these cages.. any experience with simular products like pool sealant?

besides that I found some sheets of thin but tough plastic in the craft store I get my painting stuff at.. stuff looks like it would work well as a liner but my question is... how important is it to cover the inside sides and back? if I'm using silicone to seal down the base and edges if I put a smear of it about an inch up all around that should protect the wood from possible spills right? two are gonna be desert type setups and the 3rd is for my blue tongues "unless they begin to fight" and that one I am gonna seal even better so itallows me to bump up the humidity if needed.. whatcha think about those sheets.. I dunno how thick exactly but 10 sheets of paper would be close 15 tops... thanks again chris

I have used two-part epoxy paints for pools and have had very good success. But they are expensive.

I think the insides of cages should be sealed for the first few to several inches. The rest can get a basic coat of paint or waterborne polyurethane. This is sufficient for most species unless they are arboreal, require high humidity and/or misting machines.

Good luck kicking the flu and with your business ventures.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

hmmm any idea how expensive? a round about idea? the stuff I used before was awesome.. easy cleaning and looked great... well he oiginal light blue sucked but the tan stuff looked awesome...

Was the stuff you used before a two-part mix? And extremely smelly (like solvent)? The stuff I used was and was about $100 per gallon.

If not, you may have used something entirely different.

A pro cage building who sometimes posts on this forum has used the Rustoleum two-part garage floor epoxy as a replacement and has had good luck with it. He uses the solvent-based Rustoleum product.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.