Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Originally I thought I would start out big and attempt building cages for some of my animals, but I have decided since I know nothing about any sort of construction, I'm just going to modify some existing cages I have into display cages. So - here's what I have - basic melamine cages with sliding glass dorrs on tracks in the front. All sides are melamine except for back, which is pegboard. I'sd like to paint them black (they're obviously whatite now), and somehow add lighting into the solid melamine top. How do I go about it? Please give instructions for a total beginner, and maybe even tell me where I can buy the materials. Thanks so much for any help!
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Inhabitants of the reptile room:
Leopard geckos, pictus geckos, crested geckos, african fat-tails, Paroedura bastardi bastardi, a velvet gecko, Henkel's Leaf Tails, Bibron's geckos, Corn snakes, Ball Pythons, Honduran milks, a single Taiwan Beauty, Leucistic Texas Rats, Solomon Island Tree Boas, a pair of Mali Uromastyx, an Amazon tree boa, baby Hatian tree boas, a single female circleback Colombian red-tail...

The humidity requirments will influence what type of paint we recommend.

Regardless, there are certain primers you'll need to put down first. Crtoon knows what they are.

Have you considered using black contact paper? It's difficult to retrofit into an already built cage but I wonder if you could spray on a small amount of water to allow you to move it around a bit while it dries and you squegee the bubbles out.

It won't wory well for scratching species.
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Current snakes:

1.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

3.4 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

2.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

>>It won't wory well for scratching species.

Should read... It won't "work" well for scratching species.

Of the lizards on your list I'd only avoid it for the floors of the Uromastyx cages. But that will be covered with substrate anyways so you really don't need to worry about covering or painting it. It will be fine on the walls.

Contact paper should work fine for the geckos on your list.
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Current snakes:

1.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

3.4 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

2.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

Hi Chris,

Can I buy this at Home Depot/ Lowe's? How difficult is it to do? And will it hold up to high-ish humidity? I was going to attempt it for a pair of Solomon Island Tree Boas first. Any hnits about adding lighting? Thanks a ton!
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Inhabitants of the reptile room:
Leopard geckos, pictus geckos, crested geckos, african fat-tails, Paroedura bastardi bastardi, a velvet gecko, Henkel's Leaf Tails, Bibron's geckos, Corn snakes, Ball Pythons, Honduran milks, a single Taiwan Beauty, Leucistic Texas Rats, Solomon Island Tree Boas, a pair of Mali Uromastyx, an Amazon tree boa, baby Hatian tree boas, a single female circleback Colombian red-tail...

>>Can I buy this at Home Depot/ Lowe's?

Yes, it's the sticky-backed stuff you line drawers and shelves with.

>>How difficult is it to do?

To fit it into an already assembled cage will be difficult. I believe the water method will work. I saw it used recently to add frosted glass vinyl to french doors. Practice with it on the outside of the cage first.

>>And will it hold up to high-ish humidity?

Go to finegtps.com and look at the cage builing pages. It's very popular among the GTP crowd so yes, it will hold up.

>>Any hnits about adding lighting? Thanks a ton!

There have been some recent threads on this, I believe. Maybe read through the posts are start a new thread.
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Current snakes:

1.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

3.4 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

2.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

Melamine is one of those products that is so extremly non porous that it's really hard to paint. There are two ways of going about this. One way you can get a 2 part epoxy paint made for ceramic tile and formica... however this is oil based and takes months upon months to offgas. It also runs arond $60-$75/gallon.

A cheaper and easier way to do it would be to use a primer that will adhere to melamine. This won't work as well or as long as the epoxy will... but I think that it should hold up well. This primer is called Zinzer Bulls Eye 1-2-3... they sell it at home depot. Depending on what color you want to paint the top coat you may want to tint the primer to get a better top coat color, however I would NOT get the deep tint base primer.

Some colors like reds are translucent in nature, so you need a medium to dark gray to get the true red out. (same is true with a few modifications to other colors.) The deep tint base bulls eye 1-2-3 is going to have less white pigment in it, so you can get more black colorant in the can...giving you a deeper base color. However the white is mixed with something else and this forms a portion of the adhesive. When you lose that you lose some adhesive to it... so just tell them you want the regular bulls eye 1-2-3. Then i'd reccomend a behr semi gloss over the top of that.

In my chondro cage I actually put down a primer then a semigloss paint, THEN put a layer of FRP down over the entire inside of the cage. I have put so much money and work into these cages I want them to last for a LONGGGG time! lol.
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-Chris

The reason mainstream thought is thought of as a stream is because it's so shallow. -George Carlin

A fool doesn't learn. A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others. Which one are you?

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Current snakes:
0.1 Licorice Stick Black Rat (Lola)
1.0 Black Rat (Frankie)
1.1 Texas Bairds (Jose and Rosa)
0.1 Blue Beauty (Brunhilde)
1.0 Green Tree Python (Claudius)... coming soon