I made this yesterday and today for Emilio and Esmerelda. They have been pretty good so I thought I'd hook em up with a new pad. It's 48 inches wide x 20 inches high and deep...divided down the middle making it two 24x20x20 cages. PVC pipe is hung on closet rod hangers. The cage much like everything else I've been building lately is made of tileboard (Shower surround paneling)---great stuff! framed with 1x2s I can't put them in till the caulk dries and airs. Maybe sometime this weekend I can.
Go back to Home depot and go to where pegboard and paneling is. Look for the white thin 4x8 sheets of "Tile Board" It should cost 10 bucks and change.
Here is what I do step by step.
1) start with the rough cuts. For this cage, I used 2 sheets of tileboard but had a good bit left over. I got Lowes to make the rough cuts. Tileboard is white on one side and brown on the other. You don't want the brown to show. The bottom and back are single sided but the top and walls are double sided (white side in and white side out) The rough cuts I made for this cage was eight 48x20 pieces, and several 4 foot strips of 1 inch and 1 1/2 inch strips for trim work. I don't have a table saw and cutting the thin strips with a circular saw is a pain.
Other materials to pick up: any choice of cabinet knobs 6 small hinges, two 18x24 inch pieces of acrylic (while you are over by the glass and plexi dept...pick up some window screen and just below the window screen are these really cool little white plastic oblong buttons that make great twist locks, 1 1/4 inch deck screws, caulk gun, tube of tub and tile caulk, 3 tubes of liquid nails (heavy construction), You will also need some 1/2 inch #8 machine screws for the knobs. The ones that come with them are too long for acrylic/plexi. They are made for wooden drawers and cabinet doors. You will need some #6 machine screws as short as you can find them to mount the hinges to the plexi and some 1 inch #8 wood screws for mounting the twist locks that you twist to open and cloes the cage. With the size of these doors You will need to use 1/4 inch plexi for less flex with anything prone to escape. Emeralds are not escape artists and don't test the doors much so I used the thin stuff but I did put some weather stripping to help seal it up and make slithering through the crack a bit more difficult. I can easily stick my fingers between the frame and the glass and pull it out though so NO WAY would I put a mamba in there without the thicker / stiffer glass lol. I used seven 8 foot 1x2s to frame it up.
NOW...get all this stuff home and find a nice flat work area. take one of the 20x48 pieces and flip it upside down (brown side up) and glue pieces of 1x2 flat side down to the tile board creating a frame. Make the cuts exact and square....VERY IMPORTANT. Glue a suport piece down the middle....clamp it and let it dry.
While that is drying you can start with the sides. The cage will be 20 inches tall and deep so cut 2 pieces of 20x20. and 2 more pieces a little shorter for the inside panels of the walls. Measure the thickness of the floor piece you just made. The outside wall will mount to the outside all the way to the bottom of the floor decking and the inside will seat firmly on the floor itsself so the inside pieces must be about an inch shorter. Measure it exactly and subtract that measurment from 20 for the inside wall height. Cut 4 of these smaller pieces if you are going to use a divider for the 2 cages in one deal.
Frame the walls the same way you did the floor starting with the shorter piece. glue the wood strips down to the brown side making sure everything is exact, flush and square. once that dries a bit you can glue the longer piece making sure it's flush and square and everything has flat surfaces on all the edges with the bottom of the walls having a little less to right at an inch overhang. clamp them and let them dry good before attempting to mount the walls. Usually in about an hour and a half they are ready to work with. Flip the bottom piece white side up ...place the sides on the outer edges and make sure everything is square and fits. run a bead of glue on the exposed wood on the framed walls on the end with the overhang. stick the walls on. I usually lean something against them to hold them in place for about 45 minutes and then flip it on it's back and shoot deck screws through the bottom of the floor framing and into the wall framing. DRILL GUIDE HOLES or the wood will split. Once drilled, waiting on the glue to dry is a non-issue. Now the top. This gets tricky because gravity is NOT your friend. frame the top piece (48x20) leaving 1 inch overhangs and cut 2 inches off one of the other 48x20 pieces for the inside ceiling piece....by now you should know what to do with all that...how to frame it and how to glue it and clamp it. It is crucial that the overhang and the framing of this piece are exact...and when mounting it you will need to do so with lots of clamps in place or all the twisting and pushing will pop it apart...along with the gravity pulling the ceiling in on you. You can clamp boards to the inside of the wall for the ceiling piece to rest on. While all the glue is drying, make sure everything is aligned, square and flush....MANY
TIMES. ...If you are going to install a divider...do it now...or after the back is on...it doesn't really matter.
after a couple hours you can mount the back. Since the bottom top and sides are framed....you have a complete rectangle of framework to mount too. glue it on and run a few deck screws around to hold it in place. Remember to drill guide holes. It would suck to get this far and have to start all over.
Once the back is in place, cut your vent holes. I use a 4 inch hole saw and drill them out. Be careful when doing this. If you have never used a large hole saw, it has a LOT of torque and it binds a lot and can easily break your arm. Cut out the holes where ever you want them....make us all proud though and measure it out and don't just drill random big holes in the back of your cage
Flip the cage on it's front so that the back of the cage is brown side up run a bead of liquid nails around the holes you just cut and place pieces of window screen over the holes. Use the hole saw again and cut holes in scrap pieces of tileboard and glue them over the screen making a nice screen / glue sandwich lining up the holes together. lay bricks or something on it and go take a break for a couple of hours.
After your break set your cage up right and cut pieces of 1x2 to make an upper and lower lip. Depending on how much lip you want, lay them upright or flat. This will be the only exposed wood inside your cage or outside. Paint it white with some outdoor acrylic paint. I also slop a little paint on the exposed tileboard edges to hide the brown from showing. It just makes the cage look cleaner and protects the edges from water damage later.
Glue the trim strips on top and bottom first and then measure one side of the wall edges between the top and bottom pieces you just mounted. cut all vertical pieces for the walls and dividers exactly the same length. If you cut them to fit because of how you mounted the top and bottom piece slightly askew, then the doors will not line up and the cage will look like a train wreck. Cut them the same...glue them down and then adjust the top and bottom pieces as needed till it's all on there square.
Mount the hinges on the plexi....outside edges of the hinges should be an inch from the edges of the plexi....and one dead center. drill the holes with a 1/8 inch bit and mount them with the little #6 machine screws you bought. and then wood screws to mount the other side of the hinges to the cage.
Find the center of the top of the door and drop down about 2 inches or where ever you want and drill out a 1/4 inch hole for the knob. Mount the knob with the shorter #8 machine screw and
toss the long ones in the trash or in your misc screw bucket.
Last step....caulk all the inside cracks and let it dry for 24 hours. at least....and take pics.
OR if this is too much work and it does take about 12 hours or so to build not counting the shopping and planning and looking for drill bits and T squares and stuff....Come to Georgia and I'll help you build one here for a fee lol
Dont judge my artwork, but my idea
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