Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Building a stack of melamine cages, 36x16x10. Got one together. I put a 2" lip at the the bottom and top. Stumped on how to go about making the doors. Sliding glass tracks would be the easy way to go, but I use aspen for bedding and figured it would get into the track when cleaning so may not be the best way to go. So I am thinking a framed hinged door. May have built it too short or may have to do away with the top lip. Need ideas before starting any more cages. Apreciate all the help. First time building cages.

What i do is get either the oak or poplar 1 by 3 and make a basic frame like a picture frame. measure and mitre the ends at forty-five degrees, then glue and nail. an invalueable tool to get is a framing square it is about 7 bucks, and probably one of the best investments towards cage building that i have made. i also use plexiglass, and the tub and tile caulk will hold the glass to the door with out problems, just bead it on and clamp another piece of wood over the glass when you have it set on there.
i also think that with a cage that size i would use one top or bottom folding door.
i am also curious on how you measure the glass for sliding doors as well thats why i havent used them yet.

ken

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0.1 Albino Cal. King (Fokker)
1.0 Reverse Okeetee Corn (trouble)
0.1 Creamsicle Corn (Spot)
1.1 Bearded Dragons (Bob & Margret)
1.3 Dogs(George, Sandy, Cookie and Ladybird) they are rescues, Lhasa Apso, Mutt, Boxer, and Daschund mix
0.0.22 Bearded Dragon Eggs...more to come
1.0 Betta
0.1 Wife
0.1 Kid

The instructions with the glass track say to measure the the width, divide by two, add 1/2" for overlap. For the height, measure height opening subtract 3/8". This will allow you to be able to install the panels because top track is deeper than the bottom. My concern is the aspen clogging the track when cleaning.

I used the same basic design as you are using. I built a 5 unit enclosure earlier without the litter dam. This latest cage includes the 2" litterdam. The litterdam will keep most of the aspen out of the tracks. You can always use a shop-vac or a regular vacuum with a hose attachment to vacuum the tracks. I use sand in both of my cages and it isn't that bad to keep cleaned out.

I'm not a huge fan of framed, hinged doors only because I like the more open look of the double sliders. But if you like them then that's the likely solution.

I also like the idea of having a glass or acrylic lip that sits behind and higher than the front litter dam. You can use your leftover pieces of glass track to make a channel for it to slide in and out of. Or you can install in permanently.

In conjunction with the above idea you cut the glass track so that it goes ahead and fits perfect between the far edges of the door opening. Then cut the ends at about a 20* angle. What this does is allow the door to push the substrate to the ends of the track and funnel it back into the cage.

Or you can have the the glass track end about 3/8" from the end of the cage sides which allows for even more room for the substrate to fall out. If you don't like the looks of that you can hide it behind a piece of moulding as in the cage pictured below.

Either of these last two options make for easy cleaning of the glass track.

When I do build hinged doors I make them frameless to give the same type of viewing as a double slider.

I just make a 1/4" thick frame that sits on the face of the cage without cutting into the viewing area. Then I have a piece of acrylic cut that sits inside of this frame. This smaller face frame allows for the use of flush mount hinges. They do make offset hinges but they are harder to find and are odd sizes. The offset hinges allow you to skip the smaller frame.

Acylic hinges are then screwed into the wood side and solvent-welded onto the acrylic side.

If you look at the picture below you can see the main, structural face frame, and the smaller, 1/4" thick frame that is attached that the structural frame. The acrylic hinges & the thumb tabs that keep the door shut should also be visible.

Sorry for the condition of the cage in this picture. It spent a day under water in a flood (no animals inside, fortunately) and this picture was taken the morning after a Corucia zebrata and her newborn had spent the night trashing the cage.