Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am playing with some plans for a rack/stack of cages. I prefer working with wood, well that and I do not have the tools needed to work with plastic. I will be making a few 3'x 3'x 18" enclosures. Each one will be divided into three 3'Lx 1'H x 18"D cages. I plan to house kenyan sand boas, leopard geckos and chihuahua mtn kings in them. I plan to create faux rock on the walls and ceramic or slate tile on the floors. If I use MDF I will use a latex paint or ?.., if plywood I will be staining and sealing with a waterbased polyuerethane.

What would be a better choice for this project MDF or Plywood? They are both around $20 for a 4x8 3/4" sheet. Which would be more likely to last the longest? Less likely to sag/warp? anything else?

Roxanne

Check out www.finegtps.com if you use mdf. I built my cages modified to suit my needs, but using his methods.

Vamp

tried replying, but kept getting an error page.. anyhow
Thanx for the link. Will have to bookmark it. And gorgeous snake!

>>I will be making a few 3'x 3'x 18" enclosures. Each one will be divided into three 3'Lx 1'H x 18"D cages.

I realize this is not the point of this post, but you might consider tweaking those dimensions slightly to better utilize material. I may be wrong, but I believe you'll waste a lot of material that way. Since you're looking at $20 sheet goods I'm guessing money is a concern. But it is early in the AM and I've still not finished my first cup of coffee, so I may be wrong

>>What would be a better choice for this project MDF or Plywood?

Given that exact choice, MDF for sure. $20 plywood tends to not be very good.

>>I plan to house kenyan sand boas, leopard geckos and chihuahua mtn kings in them. I plan to create faux rock on the walls and ceramic or slate tile on the floors. If I use MDF I will use a latex paint or ?..,

None of those require a huge amount of durability/moisture resistance. I believe you could use a high quality acrylic paint and be fine. You may have to repaint them every couple of years, but that's not big deal since it dries so quickly.

But I do recommend a high quality paint. Go to your local dealer and tell them you want the most water resistant interior primer/paint combo they have. No exterior or oil-based paints are required here.

Thanx Chris. I can spend more than $20 per sheet, I would like to do it as cheap as possible but is not really that much of a factor. I used the cheap stuff for my iguanas cage and it turned out ok. Only complaint is that on a few of the plywood sheets had several imperfections that they had cut out and put in small oval wood pieces. I was able to work around this and used those boards for shelves, but my fault for not more thoroughly checking the sheets when buying.. but after the 4th sheet I kinda said just grab them.
So compared to a better quailty plywood would you go with it or MDF? I knida wanted to just go with the MDF so I could avoid the end pieces of the plywood showing- where you can see all the layers, cannot think of the proper name for it at the moment. Or I could just get some trim to cover them. Like I said I am still playing with the plans a lot, tweaking it here and there to match my animals needs and my needs for it. And with apt life, space is always an issue, hence the 3' legnth and waste of material.
thanx again, I always learn something from your posts.
Roxanne

Plywood will end up being more expensive. Not only per sheet, but also the finishing will tend to be more expensive. And as you say it's nice to cover the exposed edges.

Lowes, Home Depot and similar places have decent laminated plywoods. Birch, maple and oak are often available. Expect to pay $30 to $50 per sheet.

Regarding the 3' length, I'm not suggesting you abandon it totally, but rather tweak it slight to better utilize the wood. It's not hard, just sit down with a piece of paper and draw several rectangles to the same scale as a 4' x 8' sheet and start trying different patterns.

Probably a bigger deal if you go with laminated plywood since it's so expensive.