Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i'm making a cage fpor my rough neck. what do you all use to seal the wood? i keep hearing about frp, but how would a few coats of water based wood sealer work? i have some very pretty wood so i would like to go this route. also, if i stain it or use some of the oil based sealer on the outside is that still bad? i bought some marine water based sealer for the inside and i forgot what i went with for the outside, probably waterbased though.
thanks,
-jake

I use polyurethane on the interior some of my enclosures. I put at least 3 coats on it over a period of many days so each layer can fully dry. I then let the wood sit and offgas for a minimum of one month. So far it handles the moisture and dirt very well. I have only been doing this for a couple of years so I do not know how long the enclosures will last. The last time I cleaned all the dirt out of my oldest enclosure the wood was holding up great, howeverI do not expect it to last forever. The entire bottom of this particular enclosure is covered with FRP.

I am working on a new enclosure with no FRP, but I have 4 to 6 coats of polyurethane where the dirt will be. I may put FRP on the bottom of this also. It is offgassing now so I still have time to decide.

There is an untreated plywood hide at the bottom center where you can compare the color of the polyurethaned and plain wood.

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Ed

Here is another cage that I painted the inside a few different shades of green then put a few coats of polyurethane on over the paint.
I have had this enclosure for a few years with no problems. I has housed a few different reptiles.

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Ed

thanks a lot, i think im gonna use frp or linolium for the dirt covered part of the cage. but its nice birch so i'll just coat the rest. do you really think it needs a full month to degass? the problem is i live in a frat house. it will probably be broken or damaged if i don't have it in my room by about the end of winter break (jan. fourthish). i was gonna coat the wood before screwing it into the pvc frame, so i was prolly gonna do the first coat tomoro and wait about 8-10 hours in between coats and put it in my room sometime this week. we are having a massive party on saturday the seventh and the cage would be destroyed if i left it out. also it rains almost nonstop up there so i can't leave it outside anywhere. do you think that is too dangerous to put it in my room so early? i can probably just put the cage in my room where it is gonna rest and put his current cage elsewhere temporarily.
thanks
-jake

I put polyurethane on what is going to be my new cage 2 weeks ago. I can still smell it when I go into my basement. I am not sure how dangerous the fumes are, but I wouldn't want it in my house until it offgassed. I definitely wouldn't put a monitor in there until at least a month after I coated the wood. You would probably be better off putting FRP over the entire inside of the enclosure and sealing the edges with silicone.
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Ed