Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi. I am in the middle of making a cage for my Bearded Dragon. The walls are made of plywood and I was thinking about applying a stain / varnish for that "finished" look. Is there a great deal of concern out there as to what to use vs. what not to use.....as with all other BD's, humidity and moisture will not be a problem so I'm thinking I have a couple of safe options. Please help!!! Thanks! LW

If it's a pine finished plywood they tend to not take stains very well.

My Bearded Cage is made from birch-laminated plywood. My GF stained it with a mahogany stain that looked great. I believe the stain was water based. Not a huge deal if it's oil-based. Just give it more time to dry.

The cage was sealed with three coats of Polycrylic - a water based polyurethane.

It has held up well except for the floor which was scratched up. I ended up putting down some vinyl flooring scrap after a year which has worked well.

This cage looks much better in person than this picture would suggest.

For staining pine make a dilute poly or varathane using paint thinner for the poly and water for the vara. Use three parts of the cut to one part of the finsih. Apply this in a light coat then sand lightly before staining this will make the stain take more evenly.
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Hope this helps.

BigT

I'm using Luan Mahogany plywood. Do you think I'll have any probs with this?? Thanks a bunch.

I don't think you'll have any problems. It is not the most accepting material of stain but it may just take an extra coat to even things out.

Well worth staining, in my opinion.