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More on Home Made Reptile Cages.
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by Cro on August 25, 2007
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If you can find one of those new subdivisions where some builder is creating 50 to 100 almost identical houses, you can get some good snake cage building material for free.
You will probably have to find the Builder, or Cabnetmaker, or Plumber, on site to accomplish this, and ask him to save the material they usually throw away for you.
You see, in every one of these houses being built, they will be installing a Kitchen Counter-Top. And they will be cutting a hole in that counter top for the kitchen sink. This leaves a piece of plywood that has a laminated Corian or Formica plastic laminated to it. Most of these cut-outs are about 24 inches by 36 inches in size.
So you gather a bunch of them, and cut them to size for cages. You leave the waterproof plastic surface on the inside, and the plywood on the outside. You seal the seams with 100% Silicone Rubber Adhesive. This makes a Snake Cage with no out-gassing problems once the silastic drys, and the surface is attractive and impervious to anything the snake can throw at it, and easy to clean and sanitize.
The best of these materials are on 5/8 or 3/5 plywood, and the worst are on 1 " particle board.
Years ago, I filled a Pick Up Truck with a few hundred of these cut-outs, and made about 40 very attractive cages with sliding glass fronts, that I sold from the Pet Shop I was working in at the time. I used a Skill Saw and a Hand Saw, and an Electric Drill in the construction. It was good money for a 15 year old kid in 1970. I used the money I made to purchase my first table saw, and from there went on to making many, many wooden cages.
Also, as far as the sliding glass cage fronts, many glass stores bring back plate glass after they have replaced the glass in store fronts. Often it is available for free or very little money. It is often just thrown into their dumpsters.It can be 3/16 or 1/4 inch thick.
Go to Lowes or Home Depot or a high priced Ace Hard- Ware Store, or even Walmart, and buy a $2.00 glass cutter, and learn how to use it. You can make tons of cage fronts for little cost. You can hand polish the edges with a tungsten-carbide stone. Or you can cut grooves in wood for them to sit in. EMail me if you need a lesson in cutting glass. It is easy to do.
Best Regards JohnZ
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RE: More on Home Made Reptile Cages.
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by munge on August 26, 2007
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either each group will clean up after themselves or a cleanup crew will do it every week or two. they'll throw away tons of stuff that you can pull from the dumpster or you can just get an OK from the superintendent to take the scraps and shouldn't have a problem. nowadays, a lot of places are ridiculous about "stealing" and can give you a hard time about it. builders throw tons of stuff away and don't care, but i'd go through the super if possible just to avoid any trouble. last year, a local builder threw away enough brick to do 32 houses with (they built about 175 all year, so that's a lot of "scrap" brick)
you can get enough materials to build a whole reptile shed too. lumber, brick, shingles, sheetrock, etc. an acquaintance built an 8x12 shed for less than $100 total, and it's nice, just a lot of free stuff he had gathered over about a month or two.
you'd be amazed at the waste. they'll even get rid of $200 vanity cabinets that weren't needed just to get them out of the way.
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