Well after reading many great posts on this board about building your own vivarium I finally purchased all the stuff and got to building this weekend. Here is my experience so far and I hope this helps someone.
First let me say that I am no "Bob the Builder", in fact, I have never built anything before yet for some reason I had many of the tools needed in my garage.
Problems: I decided to go with Oak as Malemine was $38 per sheet and Oak was $49, so I felt it was well worth the extra 10 bucks. The problem was that I had no way of cutting the wood with precision so I asked the Home Depot people to cut it for me. The bad news is that when I went to assemble the back wall it was a 1/2 inch too short along the entire top. I went back to home depot and found out the hard way that you must purchase an entire sheet of Oak (no half sheets). So it cost me another $49 to just make one 46 1/2 x 24 peice. The moral of the story is DO NOT have home depot cut your wood. If I had it to do all over agian I would go to a lumber yard that does precision cutting.
Other than that I was pretty much able to get the vivarium together and strained. Tomorrow I will start the sealing process. Thanks to great post such as viewtopic.php?f=34&t=71756 and http://www.freewebs.com/crossfireenclosures/ a clumsy carpent such as myself was able to get the hardest part done.
When I cut the holes for the back vents I measured 3 inches down and 4 inches across. I did the two outside vents first and then worked in from there. If you use 7 vents as I did it is exactly 6.5 inches from the center of the outer vents. Continue measuring 6.5 inches from center of every vent to get your next vent placement.
I bought all my material at home depot. The 3 inch vents and the side vents can all be found in the roofing department. The 3 inch vents do not have screens though and I will just by some screen and put it in each vent with a little glue.
I followed the post advice from "CROSSFIRE MADE EASY **UPDATED - 3.09.2008*" (link above) and used a countersink to drill my holes. I did not get one single wood split because of this.
Anyway, I will continue to post my progress. Were anxious to get the viv finished so we can start working on the fake rock. Here is a pic of what i got so far just before staining.
First let me say that I am no "Bob the Builder", in fact, I have never built anything before yet for some reason I had many of the tools needed in my garage.
Problems: I decided to go with Oak as Malemine was $38 per sheet and Oak was $49, so I felt it was well worth the extra 10 bucks. The problem was that I had no way of cutting the wood with precision so I asked the Home Depot people to cut it for me. The bad news is that when I went to assemble the back wall it was a 1/2 inch too short along the entire top. I went back to home depot and found out the hard way that you must purchase an entire sheet of Oak (no half sheets). So it cost me another $49 to just make one 46 1/2 x 24 peice. The moral of the story is DO NOT have home depot cut your wood. If I had it to do all over agian I would go to a lumber yard that does precision cutting.
Other than that I was pretty much able to get the vivarium together and strained. Tomorrow I will start the sealing process. Thanks to great post such as viewtopic.php?f=34&t=71756 and http://www.freewebs.com/crossfireenclosures/ a clumsy carpent such as myself was able to get the hardest part done.
When I cut the holes for the back vents I measured 3 inches down and 4 inches across. I did the two outside vents first and then worked in from there. If you use 7 vents as I did it is exactly 6.5 inches from the center of the outer vents. Continue measuring 6.5 inches from center of every vent to get your next vent placement.
I bought all my material at home depot. The 3 inch vents and the side vents can all be found in the roofing department. The 3 inch vents do not have screens though and I will just by some screen and put it in each vent with a little glue.
I followed the post advice from "CROSSFIRE MADE EASY **UPDATED - 3.09.2008*" (link above) and used a countersink to drill my holes. I did not get one single wood split because of this.
Anyway, I will continue to post my progress. Were anxious to get the viv finished so we can start working on the fake rock. Here is a pic of what i got so far just before staining.