Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey everyone,

Does anyone remember San-Mar Cages back in the day (mostly in the 1990's)? Especially in Southern California. I have one still, I had more but sold them. I wished I would of kept them. Anyway, I was considering starting to make something similar and was curious if there might be a market for something that is still made out of melamine.

If your familiar with San-Mar caging, you know they were built super tough and last longer than most reptiles they were used for.

Let me know your thoughts.

I went to their wood shop and purchased stuff from them. They were shelf system mfgrs for stores, and they did those awesome racks with extruded aluminum for the heat tape and awesome edge banding. The thing with those, they looked like furniture.

Melamine has its good points (heat mass, heats slowly and evenly, cools slowly, looks nice) and bad points (weight, can't handle too much humidity). Shipping is the problem, you would probably have to ship them flat and have the customer screw them together.

I think there is always room for melamine racks in the market, especially san-mar quality.

I know I used to have a rack for arboreals. They used a heating wire with the aluminum covering the wire, which was plumb with the shelf in a dado. Plus the used the commercial food grade bins. Great quality.

I was just curious if there might be an interest. I have seen some people make cages or what they think are cages at some of the shows recently. They are horrible. I mean painted plywood! Really! I'm just thinking if locally for now. I might see if I can come up with a couple and put them out there and see what happens. I could always use them if they don't sell anyway.

Thanks for the response.

I agree with you. I bet if you do that you will get some sales. We cannot be the only ones who appreciate nice caging. There is something about wood/melamine cages that plastic cages do not have.