Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am just finishing up a cage made of plywood and even though it's my first attempt, I'm still not thrilled with how it looks.In an attempt to stick with homemade to save money but improve appearances, I'm considering melamine for my next one. Some questions:

1) What thickness is best - Home Depot had some 3/4 I think but it was really heavy

2) Where do you buy it - Home Depot, Lowes, cabinet makers?

3) How do you physically attach the sides - screws and glue?

4) What do you do with the unfinished sides?

5) Sliding glass front doors OK or do you need some kind of bracing for wide cages (looking at 5 to 6 feet width for my next two cages) to prevent sagging and binding of the glass

Thanks for any advice!!

1) What thickness is best - Home Depot had some 3/4 I think but it was really heavy

3/4" is heavy but I've always found 1/2" to be too flimsy. 5/8" is available if you look around but does not save that much weight and often is more expensive.

All things considered, I think 3/4" is a good choice.

2) Where do you buy it - Home Depot, Lowes, cabinet makers?

I buy it from Home Depot or Menards. Cabinet makers likely carry higher quality but the differences are probably not significant for keeping herps. I only use melamine in lidless rack systems or in cages with little moisture so the quality does not matter. If I needed extra moisture resistance I would not consider melamine in the first place.

3) How do you physically attach the sides - screws and glue?

Screws (pre-drilled and counter-sunk) and glue or my bisquit joiner. I rarely use dado or rabit joints.

4) What do you do with the unfinished sides?

Iron-on melamine edge tape.

5) Sliding glass front doors OK or do you need some kind of bracing for wide cages (looking at 5 to 6 feet width for my next two cages) to prevent sagging and binding of the glass

If multiple cages will be stacked 5 to 6 feet wide may be too much for sliding glass. However, I like sliding glass so the center can be braced with scrap product.

A few more comments:

What did you not like aesthetically about your plywood cage? I actually find it easier to work with a make an attractive cage with than melamine. Maybe some of us on this forum can make your current or next plywood cage more professional looking?

What species is this for? I really don't like melamine for high-humidity conditions.

Lastly, I often used the bull-nosed melamine shelving from Menards for most of my melamine projects. It limits the width to just over 23" so that my not work for you. Once you buy two 8' by 23.5" pieces it's cheaper than a full sheet of melamine.

Thanks for your reply.

What I don't like about my cage:
1) It looks exactly like a first attempt at a cage by someone with no experience at woodworking which describes me perfectly so I realize I am being much too hard on myself!
2) I used 1/4 inch plywood screwed to a 2x2 frame with a subfloor under the actual floor and a bottom hinged wood framed plexiglass front door. Overengineered the darn thing for my first attempt.
3) The plywood was construction quality so even with a nice stain on it, it still looks cheap.

See if you agree or have any additions to my lessons learned:
1) Keep it simple. Lose the frame and go with thicker, higher quality plywood which can be screwed and glued like melamine.
2) Eliminate the whole subfloor idea.
3) Use sliding glass front doors for better appearance - no hinges or sliding bolts necessary.

Thanks again for all your input!!

LOL! Sounds like our minds think (or thought) alike. My first cage designs also were over-engineered and did not come out so well.

I totally agree with your new plans to keep in simple. I recently built a cage for a friend of mine with basically no prior wood working experience. In order to show him just how easy cage building could be I...

1) Used oak-laminated plywood and had all cuts made by Home Depot. To keep in simple all cuts were cross cuts (i.e. no cuts along the length of the board). This assures that we would always have one constant dimension to work off of (the width of the sheet) and the squareness of the cut pieces would be within reasonable tolerances.

2) Used simple edge joints (no dados, mitres, or rabits) using glue and screws.

3) Door was a double sliding door with plastic glass track.

We did add some complexities to the cage. We used a false-ceiling design and a real oak face treatment. I actually think the face treatment was easier as we used corner rossettes rather than miter cuts. Also, the face treatment is much more durable than real oak edge tape. We did use edge tape on the top edges of the cage but that was it.

The false-ceiling design did add a lot of complexity but it also added a lot of versatility to the cage. I'll attach some pictures and an explanation of the false-ceiling in another post.

Here's a picture of the finished cage. Like I said, without the false ceiling design this is about as simple as a cage can get.

The cage is not complete in any the pictures. Sorry for all the materials laying in the cage because of this.

Dimensions are 49.5" x 30" x 48".

Just so you understand what I mean by a false ceiling.

In this picture you can see a 1" pine frame I built and installed in the cage 8" away from the actual top of the cage (it runs from the top lip of the cage to the back panel of the cage).

The frame was built with simple edge joints and bonded with screws, glue, and metal corner brackets. A staple gun with long staples was used to attach heavy guage welded wire to the frame.

The back panel of the cage stops 8" from the top of the cage and, once again, the frame runs from there to the bottom of the front lip. In my previous picture you can perhaps see the light being cast out of the back of the cage. The light is coming out of the open area. This allows lights, mist heads, etc. to be easily replaced, repaired, removed, etc.

The cage would have been even simpler if we had not used this false-ceiling design and just had the back panel run all the way up to the top of the cage. Then we would have added ventilation by cutting appropriate sized squares out of the back or sides and screwing in vent covers.

But the false-ceiling design allowed for a lot of ventilation and the use of high intensity lights and heaters tucked safely away from the specimen(s) in the cage.

So this was a long-winded post to basically tell you that my design could be even simpler without the false-ceiling.

...

what kind of plants are those on the left. how big do they get/tall?

I built this cage for a friend. I sent him an e-mail asking him to respond to your question.

That plant is an African corn plant or Dracanea... They come in a variety of heights, but they will only grow as tall the shoots of the plant are...
The cage is awesome, it was Chris's mind and design that allowed us to put it together... It will house several Uroplatus henkeli as soon as it's complete... I am in the process of finishing up the details of the cage ie. a misting system and a large sythetic waterfall in which I am builing from epoxy coated styrofoam...

thanx for responding trying to figure out what type of plants to put in my cage. can you post a picture of the cage when your finished the waterfall please? thanks

Your replies are awesome and very encouraging. Few more questions:

1) What thickness wood did you use?
2) What thickness and type of glass did you use?
3) What kind of mechanism keeps the doors from opening when not desired and where do you get it?
4) Were you serious when you said a cage that great looking was really pretty simple? There's hope for me yet.

When the cage is done and I figure out how to do it I'll post some pictures so we can all have a good laugh!

Thanks again.

1) What thickness wood did you use?

3/4" oak-laminated plywood from Home Depot. We had them cut the wood (once again, with the idea of making this simple as possible) but after seeing what their saw did to the wood I think we should have cut it ourselves. We could not fit a full sheet in my truck so it seemed a good idea at the time.

I could have done a MUCH better job with a circular saw, a clamped straight edge, and a roll of masking tape.

2) What thickness and type of glass did you use?

Regular old 1/4" plate glass with smoothed edges.

3) What kind of mechanism keeps the doors from opening when not desired and where do you get it?

Ben (who posted below) bought a simple lock when he purchased the glass from Rockler.com. He also bought the handles that are screwed to the glass and glass track at the same time. There are plastic "baby locks" that supposedly keep animals in but don't require a key. I've not seen these products, though.

4) Were you serious when you said a cage that great looking was really pretty simple? There's hope for me yet.

Yes. Like I said I wanted to give Ben an idea of just how simple a cage could be but still be nice. The false-ceiling was a bit more complex (although no more complex than your sub-floor) but really not that big of a deal. Understand the cage would look *identical* even without it. The only difference might be some ventilation panels in the cage.

Ben and I basically got the carcass assembled, the face treatment applied, and constructed the false ceiling. He and his girlfriend stained and polyurethaned the cage, installed the glass track, and anything else I may have forgotten. The only finishing work I "helped" with was applying the clear epoxy to the interior. And the only reason I helped with that was to see how the product worked (Envirotex Epoxy, I loved it).

The biggest problem you may face is if you go over 48" long on your cages. Personally, I prefer to add floor area by increasing the width but I recognize this is not adequate for all herp species. It can also make it difficult to fit through doors.

I would suggest that if you are building single cages for low to moderate humidity type inhabitants go with a nice finnish grade birch or oak 3/4 plywood it stands up to moisture alot better than melamine in the longrun , is much lighter, and sturdy. not to mention it looks really nice