Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Someone e-mailed me through a caging forum post and asked me to post these here.

This is a picture of a not yet completely finished cage I built for a friends JCP.

The dimensions are 49.5" x 30" x 48". The cage is constructed of two sheets of oak-laminated plywood. The face treatment you see if real oak molding with a vine/leaf pattern routed in (by the manufacturer, not me). My friend took a green Sharpie and filled in the pattern before applying stain and Polycrylic polyurethane. That turned out to be a very good idea - it looks great.

The interior of the cage was coated with a thick coat of Envirotex Epoxy. Envirotex is a solvent free, pour on epoxy used for bartops, etc. There is about $50 worth in this cage but it should last a very long time. I knew one guy who made a plaster waterfall and coated it with Envirotex. The waterfall has been running for 10 years with no signs of water damage.

This picture shows the false-ceiling design I use in most of my cages.

The back panel of this cage stops about 8" from the top and then the frame (as seen in the picture) runs from the top of the back panel to the bottom of the top lip of the cage.

The frame is constructed of 1" stock and assembled/attached with screws, glue, and metal corner brackets. Screen is attached with long staples and metal stips screwed down on top (including the corner brackets).

What this creates is an 8" open area in which lights, heaters, and misting system components can be hidden but still out of reach of the cage inhabitant(s). These are then accessed from the back as required.

The false ceiling is also easily accessed if one needs to reduce the ventilation for humidity reasons. Sections of the frame are easily covered up with pieces of heavy duty foil if necessary.

If you look at the first picture in this thread you will see the light being cast out of the back of this cage on the wall. This is the false-ceiling area.

That is an awesome display cage. You've definately given me some ideas for future cage projects of my own! How long did it take to construct?

Darci
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Takes all kinds to make a World...

Thanks for the comments. Actually, the craftsmanship is pretty basic. I did that on purpose to show my friend just how simple cage construction can be. Throw out the false-ceiling and add simple vent ports on the sides or backs and it would be that much easier.

I even simplified the construction to the point where I had Home Depot do all of the cuts on their panel saw. All cuts were cross cuts (across the width of the plywood) and gave us one constant dimension (the "natural" width of the plywood sheet) to work off of. The downfall of this approach is that the grain on the sides of the cage runs horizontal rather than vertical. I was worried about this but love the way the grain runs in the finished product.

With hindsight I would have cut the wood with a circular saw and a straight edge. It would have been more accurate and would not have chipped the laminate as badly (we had a lot of touch up work to do). I still would have used all cross-cuts.

Also, I've since had Home Depot cut sheets for me just to get them down to a more manageable size and they have not been square to the edge of the material. It's not their job to be accurate, though, so I can only assume I got lucky with this JCP cage.

The pieces were edge joined (no dados, rabets, or miters) with screws and wood glue.

Time for construction is hard to quantify because 1) the project was not rushed due to health problems with his JCP and 2) he and his girlfriend did much of the finishing work.

However, I can tell you we went to Home Depot late in the afternoon and had the carcass of the cage assembled by that night.

The finishing takes a while but there is not a lot of work to do in any one session. For example, the epoxy had to be poured in 5 different sessions (once for the back, each side, bottom, and bottom lip) as the surface needs to be flat while the epoxy sets up. So that took about 1/2 hour for 5 straight days.

I don't check in on the JCP forum very often so feel free to e-mail me if I don't respond to any further questions.

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That is an awesome display cage. You've definately given me some ideas for future cage projects of my own! How long did it take to construct?