plastic cage building hints

[Royerhead]

Hello!

I am relatively new to breeding herps, although I have kept them for about ten years now. I'm lucky enough to have a wife who not only fully supports my passion, but participates, too! (sometimes I have to tell HER no more snakes right now!) We have amassed a respectable collection, including boids and colubrids. Over the years, I have built several enclosures and racks. They all meet their functional requirements, but.... I would love to have the best cages possible. That's what has turned me on to the boaphile plastic cages. Very nice, indeed!

I may lack the decades of experience that seperates Jeff from most of the rest of us, but I consider myself a handy man and a bit of a carpenter, and would love to start working with plastic cages.

I am experienced in building enclosures with melamine, acrylic (plexiglass) and glass. I've built rack systems, rat racks, rabbit hutches, tons of subwoofer enclosures for car stereos. I'm no stranger to "trial and error" : )

Anyhow, I'd like to know who else has tried making cages with plastics, what their thoughts were, and any recommendations for sources.

I've done quite a bit of research on plastic welders, styrene, etc., but it never hurts to draw on the experience of others before starting out on a new endeavor.

Thanks in advance!

Jason Royer

[The_Boaphile]

Hey,

Thanks for the kudos on the cages! It's great fun! I can't give you many tips but... I thought I would tell you this:

I am a 15 year cabinet maker. I worked for the most expensive cabinet shop in the Minneapolis area here in Minnesota. We built VERY high end cabinets and furniture. Very fancy stuff. I was the guy in the shop. Know what I mean? The guy who if you had something that you couldn't figure out I could. I was the guy always making jigs to make life easier. OK, now it looks like I'm bragging right? I guess I am. I have a very high level of "the knack". Really an unfair advantage when it comes to building stuff with my hands. I am really really good. I know I bragging again but it's true.

Now, I said all that to say this. Once you find out what the rules are if you have some level of talent you can figure out how to work with plastic. You can build functional cages that will house your animals who will not know the difference if the final product does not look perfect. However, I burned through about 100 sheets of material figuring out how to do this stuff. In fact it wasn't until I had been in business for about eight or nine months and had build hundreds of cages before I was able to build really great looking cages that looked as well as they functioned. Now that I am selling these cages they have to not only make the animals happy but the keepers of those animals even more so. Now that is the trick. Building cages that look really good fast enough that you can make a little money at it and make a living at it. After all... my 4' x 2' x 11 1/2" high Drastic plastic cage at $199 is less expensive than most melamine cage guys cage of about the same size. Plastic is twice as expensive as melamine and is harder to work with. So I've had to figure out some tricks, build some jigs and work like a dog to make it all happen. Also nearly all of my cages are less expensive than molded cages which are molded to save on labor and are far less expensive to fabricate.

Not sure that anyone else has tried to build cages using plastic or not. I played with it in every extra spare moment I had for six months before I built my first cage for a customer. The tricks I have figured out were hard learned through blood, sweat and tears. I know these aren't the kind of "hints" you were looking for but just a little something(s) to think about I guess.

Good luck!

Jeff