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I tried my carpentry skills building a tall cabinet type enclosure for my monkey tailed skink.
I used oak, then an oak stain, and about 5 coats of oil based polyurethane.
Normally, I would'nt even care about off gassing, except to make sure the finish was cured to help prevent scratching.
Now an animal has to go in it, so I need it to be solvent fume free.
How long does this process take?? I finished it in a cold garage.It has sat for about 6 weeks...and still stinks.
I have put my radiator type heater inside of it on high...and it still stinks!
I want to put the critter in it this coming weekend. Is this a good idea?????

oil based poly will take a couple months to outgas, in a 75 degree room. I wouldn't put it in there this weekend.

This is something i heard to try, and i think it would work. take a mason jar and put some crickets in it. cover with some screen, like put a rubber band around it. the invert the jar. if the crickets die, then its not ready for your reptile.
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-Chris

0.1 Licorice Stick Black Rat
1.0 Black Rat
0.1 Vietnamese Blue Beauty
1.0 Green Tree Python
0.1 Texas Bairds Rat

The educated are the few. The uneducated are the masses.

North American Rat / Corn Snake Care Sheet

If I remember correctly you posted a while back that you preferred spar urethane over standard oil-based poly. Did you end up using Spar on this cage?

Understand that the solids in spar are designed to stay flexible for years. This means the material can offgass for years.

Regardless of whether it's spar or standard oil-based, if anyone coat was put on too thick or too soon you can end up with a situation where those interior coats simply don't offgass completely. The fact that you finished it in a cold garage and put on 5 coats makes me wonder if that's not what happened to you. In fact I suspect it.

Many a woodworker has either had to take a piece to the dump or spend hours with a power sander to overcame these same mistakes.

I would not even bother with the cricket test, even though I'm the one who came up with it and usually recommend it.
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Current snakes:

0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

1.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

7.6 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

0.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black & Tan)

Burmaboy,

I found the post in the archives and see that you used the floor finish, not spar.

Great product, but even though these are marketed as "fast drying" they really are only fast drying relative to other wood floor finishes. Overall floor finishes are slow drying compared to standard oil-based poly. Although there are so many types out nowadays that those generalizations may not hold true.

So I'm not sure what to recommend. You certainly don't have the concerns of the semi-flexible solids as with spar, but floor finishes do have a long open time.

Since you did this in a cold garage you may have very well applied a subsequent coat too soon. If one of those coats was also slightly thick you could really have trouble.

Give it more time before sanding it off. You should also double check and see if the floor finish you used is "moisture cure". As you probably know some polyurethanes only cure in the presence of atmospheric moisture. This is why you dampen wood before using Gorilla Glue or other polyurethane glues.

I'm about 90% certain this is not the case with the minwax floor finish, but you should really find out for sure. If so, get that radiant heater out of there ASAP.
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Current snakes:

0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

1.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

7.6 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

0.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black & Tan)

Did a bit more research...

I see that Minwax has added a catalyst of some sort to their floor finish to speed up drying. It is actually a fast drying product. Again, there is so much technology going on with finishes nowadays that the traditional generalizations don't always hold true.

My only concern with these catalysts again has to do with any single coat being applied to thick or too soon. In either case this can create a situation where a film quickly forms around an uncured layer and impeeds drying of those innermost layers.

This used to be a concern with catalysts, I have no idea if it's an issue with the Minwax floor finish or not.

What can happen is easy to visualize. If the coats are too thick and the innermost parts don't dry, the solvents in the next coat will then dissolve the skin of the previous coat and you now have a double layer of wet poly.

In theory if this happened with every coat you could litterially end up with a 5 coat thickness where only the outermost skins of the first and fifth coats are dry. It is then much more difficult for these innermost layers to have the appropriate conditions for offgassing.

But honestly, polyurethane has become so advanced that it's hard for me to keep straight what is what.

The floor finish does not appear to be moisture cure so I'd keep baking the cage with the heater.
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Current snakes:

0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

1.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

7.6 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

0.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black & Tan)

I let each coat dry thoroughly. At least 24 hrs between coats, and the radiant heater was put inside the enclosure to add heat to the drying process. I also sanded between each coat.
I have been baking it a couple hours a day now for some time.
I'll just have to keep it going.
I have also heard about the crickets in the cage way of doing.
Kind of a variation on the canary in the coal mine.
Thanks guys..I'll keep you updated.
Hopefully one of these days I'll learn how to post pics!