type of wood?

[amanda509]

hopefully soon ill be making my own cages, and figured with a whole roll of hardware cloth and wood, i could make 2 or 3 cages for the price of one aluminum cage. im just curious about the type of wood i should be using, and what should i do with it? treated, nontreated, stained, nonstained, sealed, nonsealed, types or brands of chemicals that are safe, and anything else this cages will be for indoor use only so protection from weather is not needed

 

[reptoman]

I build a lot of my own cages and use red oak for the framing. I spray paint the frame with outdoor spray paint and let it dry for at least a week before putting anything in there. You want the fumes to be long gone before putting your cham in the cage. The inside of the cage will get a lot of moisture so you should treat it as if it were going to be in the weather. The rest is usually aluminum rail with either petscreen or aluminum screen. I use small screws to attach the screen rail to the wood frame. Much cleaner and easier IMO than trying to staple the screen to the wood frame. Hope this helps!

 

[amanda509]

I build a lot of my own cages and use red oak for the framing. I spray paint the frame with outdoor spray paint and let it dry for at least a week before putting anything in there. You want the fumes to be long gone before putting your cham in the cage. The inside of the cage will get a lot of moisture so you should treat it as if it were going to be in the weather. The rest is usually aluminum rail with either petscreen or aluminum screen. I use small screws to attach the screen rail to the wood frame. Much cleaner and easier IMO than trying to staple the screen to the wood frame. Hope this helps!

what if i want the natural wood look, any suggestions on stain brands? also, instead of just attaching the screen/mesh to the frame, i wanted to sandwhich it between two thin frames for each section to have a cleaner look, and then just screw it together like an aluminum cage from diy sound okay?

 

[coldbloodedAL]

You can use just about any type of wood as long as its sealed well. And you can stain it as long as you seal it afterwards. I would use cedar because it is fairly water resistant itself, but of course seal it to be sure.. Any stain can work but you want to treat it multiple times with something like Thompsons water seal.

 

[reptoman]

I use polyurathane. Minwax sells a spray can that works well. Same rule of let it air out for at least a week applies for that. If you really want to make sure that its waterproof you can use marine varnish.

 

[JackP308]

Yea don't use the wrong MINWAX though. I asked specifically for the stuff that doesn't smell and will air out and reptile safe. Um lets see it been about 10 months and this cage still smells like I sealed it last week.

 

[reptoman]

Yea don't use the wrong MINWAX though. I asked specifically for the stuff that doesn't smell and will air out and reptile safe. Um lets see it been about 10 months and this cage still smells like I sealed it last week.

What did you use? Any of the polyurethanes or water based varnishes should be safe after completely drying out. I use that stuff all the time and it usually does not have an odor after a week to 10 days drying out.

 

[JackP308]

What did you use? Any of the polyurethanes or water based varnishes should be safe after completely drying out. I use that stuff all the time and it usually does not have an odor after a week to 10 days drying out.

Poly I think your suppose to use just urethane or some other type of urethane not apparently the poly I used.I have a very good nose for smell. I know Hoj has mentioned it a few times the kind. They only have like 500 choices to choose from so I just went with what the non knowing anything employees said..

It was completely dry by day 2. I painted stained outside in spring. It sat in shade outside or in garage with doors open for weeks. Its now been months and if I stick my nose to it it stinks. How many people stick there nose to their cage I doubt many but I was pretty irritated with this stuff.

 

[amanda509]

so im pretty sure im just goign to stain it and seal it with thompson's, sound ok?

 

[JackP308]

so im pretty sure im just goign to stain it and seal it with thompson's, sound ok?

Yea should work just make sure its the right stuff though. Minwax is good too I just used the wrong stuff apparently.

 

[Todnedo]

I have used soyseal with good results http://www.soyclean.biz/household_products/soyseal-wood-sealer-and-waterproofer.html
As for wood I would go with a 1 X 6 top grade white pine or oak and have a cabinet shop or someone with a table saw rip it down to 1 x 1 (3/4 x 3/4 actual dimension) strips.
Then you can router an 1/8 grove for the screen spline