Post by dracus on Nov 5, 2008 17:53:15 GMT -8
Hey can you tell me what supplies you got to make the cage for i can make it?
lol, a cant remember exactly the lengths of all the parts are but first i took some plywood the width and depth of the cage, screwed on 2x4 on top of all the sides, i did the same for the top and bottom. then i took some 2x4 that are the hight of the cage and screwed them inside the corners of the top and bottom, then i took a big piece of plywood the hight and width of the cage and screwed it on the back and made one for each of the sides that are the hight and depth of it. Then the construction of the cage itself was done excluding the doors. the doors are just cheap wood held together with metal angle brackets and screen using wire mesh and then there are heavy duty magnets holding the doors closed these ones are pretty strong.
The branches are small trees from a woods... lol i screwed in a little block of the 2x4 to support the branch and screwed the branch right into the side of the cage.
the tile at the bottom is self sticking vinyl tiles which i sealed in between with silicone as well as all the openings in the bottom.
Right after i was done with putting the cage itself together i stained it to give it its nice color and sealed it with water based polyurethane.. I used the entire can on it... many coats. Because the wood needs to be sealed especially since it was all pine...
I Didn't have a drill for a while so i hand screwed most of it (it sucked so much) I used 3 in screws for the structure parts (2x4) and put the plywood walls on with 2 in screws (you need a a drill to pre-drill and screw in the 3 in screws its sooooo hard).
Other than that it wasn't that much of a hassle to build.
Since i have a lack of power tools (still...) HomeDepot cut everything for me! Except for some 2x4 that i didn't know what length they needed to be, i cut them with a saw and a miter box... and i used nice lumber... so it was kinda tough...
in the end i think it was around $200 to $250 and thats for everything i put in it. But if i were to put Plexiglas (poly not acrylic) it would have been around $500 i think.
If you fortunate enough to be living near a dealer of reclaimed lumber you could probably do it for cheaper!
I wish i had one then i would have made it 6x10x5!!!! but that was going to be too expensive.
But i did use good lumber, their is cheaper lumber that will do just as good. so you could do it for cheaper anyway if you wanted to!