Flower Pot Hides

[Shrub]

I was wondering what I should use to make the small arch in the side of a flowerpot to use it for a hidebox for my boa. If anyone can give me any info it will be appreciated. Thanks!


-Shrub

[surfimp]

I can help you with that!

Here's what you'll need:

Regular hacksaw frame (9" or 11")
Carbide saw blade for cutting tile and ceramics (see photo below)
Flower pot


Here's a picture of the type of carbide saw blade that you use to cut the flower pots:

http://www.stevelange.net/boa/images/carbide.jpg

It's basically a heavy-duty wire that's coated with carbide, giving it a sandpaper-like finish. These "wire" types of blades make cutting through the ceramic flower pot much easier than a standard, rigid hacksaw blade, because you can make turns easier and the blade doesn't bind as much.

You can see the flower pot hides that I've got in my setup in this picture:

http://www.stevelange.net/boa/images/playground02.jpg

To make the flower pot hide, I hold the bowl in my lap, resting on my legs, and then I pick one side to start sawing away on. My snake is still pretty small, so I probably only cut about 3" or so down into the pot. Then I moved the blade over about 4" or so, and made another cut into the edge of the pot of equal depth to the first cut. Finally, hold the pot upside down, and gently tap the middle of the area between your two cuts, and the "door" should drop right out, leaving a fairly clean edge, which you can then go in and clean up with the saw blade if you like.

Hope that helps!

[Jonathan_Brady]

ooooooorrrr... if you want to be cheap about it like me, you can just grab a flathead screwdriver and a hammer and gently chip away at the hole already in the bottom (soon to be the top) of the flower pot. i was hesitant to do it for a while, but it works really really well and my snakes don't seem to mind that i was cheap in designing their entry/exit hole :P
hope this helps ya!
jonathan brady

[Shrub]

Thank you to both of you for your help.  I will let you know what I come out with..btw my boa should be here within...2 hours now! I am so excited to be recieving him from Jeff Ronne, I am sure he will be a high quality snake.  

On a side note..great design on your webpage Steve..do you design web pages as a profession or as a hobby?  Also, do you use straight HTML or XML or some kind of editor?  Just curious, some day I might want to dabble in HTML..

Thanks again!

-Shrub

[surfimp]

do you design web pages as a profession or as a hobby?


I guess that depends upon whether or not someone is paying me to do it... LOL :)

No, seriously, I am a web developer by trade, and http://www.shift-refresh.com is my company's site. I also run http://www.stevelange.net which is my personal blog/whatever site, and http://www.surfimplement.com, which is devoted to surfing in the Santa Barbara area.

So I suppose you could say that I do a fair amount of it as hobby, as well. I really enjoy the work that I do, for which I feel very fortunate because that hasn't been the case with every job I've worked.

As far as technologies go, I'm a Macromedia Certified Flash Developer, and working with Flash is one of my real loves. I also work with the standard "raw materials" of the web trade, like HTML, JavaScript, and PHP. I like MySQL for databases. Don't do much Java or .NET at this time but I will surely do more once I find clients who want it. I've built a wacky database-driven Flash website once, that used ASP and XML to provide live data to the Flash front-end interface; that was cool. Don't use XML as much as I'd like to though, because frankly most of the jobs I do are fairly small-scale and aren't too intricate.

So anyways that's my schtick. Hope your flower pots work out ok!

[Gofer]

While we are talking about flower pots as hide boxes, I was just wondering if any of you guys have used plastic flower pots instead of the ceramic ones? I have thought about it, but have not followed through on that thought yet. Next time I'm at a Wally or Lowe's I'll try to remember to buy a few. If anyone has used these I'd love to know the good/bad points about them. They would seem lighter, easy to disenfect possibly. But they may also break easier. Just curious as to your thoughts on them. Thanks everyone, and Jonathan, I like your idea of chiping away at the top (bottom) of the pot.
Have a good one, cwm11.gif
Gofer (aka Gregg)

[morti]

I use the plastic pots. I cut my hole in the side with a Soldering iron. That gives it a nice smooth edge that the snake has NO chance of hurting himself on. :-)

-Morti.

[Gofer]

Hey Morti, that is a great idea. And believe it or not I already have a soldering iron. So now I gues I just need to remember to buy some flower pots next time I'm at wally. I could always take some from my better halfs empties in the garage, but she would definitely find out and then I'd be in worse shape than if I'd have traveled out just to buy pots and nothing else. I still might take one or just two...for experimentation I'll tell her. Wish me luck.
Have a good one, cwm11.gif
Gregg (aka Gofer)