APailthorp
Member
Here are some pictures of a build I'm working on to make a Dragonstrand Atrium cage with solid walls. The panels and strips are from TAP Plastics, who will cut panels to a 1/16" of an inch. I can provide more specifics if anyone is seriously going to try this themselves. If you do, my recommendation is to buy the Atrium cage kit as well as the matching Dragon Ledges kit, then make your own measurements before ordering the foamed PVC panels. This is not a project for someone who isn't comfortable making that commitment.
Anyhow, I wanted solid sides. I haven't decided if I'll tape the seams yet, I may leave them as is, which is to say not air tight but probably tight enough to keep most mist in. Unlike the factory Breeder cages, these panels are not structural, they are just to hold in mist and humidity more than screen does, and nicer looking than a shower curtain.
For these images, if you click on them once you'll end up on a Flickr page, and if you click that image again, you can zoom in close.
Here are some pictures of an early experiment using a typical "small" cage. Note the cage with the shower curtain in the background, which I would replace with panels in a heartbeat except that I didn't think of it before I built the cage and installed the Dragon Ledges. To make the change now I'd have to nearly completely disassemble the cage:
These are some of the un-assembled panels:
Because I'm using panels that are 1/16" thick in place of the Dragon Ledge exterior spacers that are 1/8" of an inch thick, I need to add some spacer strips, also 1/16" thick:
Here are the panels laid out for assembly with some of the 1/16" space strips super-glued into place (foamed PVC panels glue well with super glue). The stack of strips to the upper left of the larger back panel will be discarded as they are replaced by the panels and 1/16" spacer strips:
Another in-progress image:
Here are the panels assembled with the Dragon Ledges, ready for final assembly:
And here's the whole cage:
A detail showing the spacers next to the panels:
The build is still in progress, but this is the cage configuration I've decided to modify to on top of the excellent DragonStrand Atrium cage. YMMV.
Anyhow, I wanted solid sides. I haven't decided if I'll tape the seams yet, I may leave them as is, which is to say not air tight but probably tight enough to keep most mist in. Unlike the factory Breeder cages, these panels are not structural, they are just to hold in mist and humidity more than screen does, and nicer looking than a shower curtain.
For these images, if you click on them once you'll end up on a Flickr page, and if you click that image again, you can zoom in close.
Here are some pictures of an early experiment using a typical "small" cage. Note the cage with the shower curtain in the background, which I would replace with panels in a heartbeat except that I didn't think of it before I built the cage and installed the Dragon Ledges. To make the change now I'd have to nearly completely disassemble the cage:
These are some of the un-assembled panels:
Because I'm using panels that are 1/16" thick in place of the Dragon Ledge exterior spacers that are 1/8" of an inch thick, I need to add some spacer strips, also 1/16" thick:
Here are the panels laid out for assembly with some of the 1/16" space strips super-glued into place (foamed PVC panels glue well with super glue). The stack of strips to the upper left of the larger back panel will be discarded as they are replaced by the panels and 1/16" spacer strips:
Another in-progress image:
Here are the panels assembled with the Dragon Ledges, ready for final assembly:
And here's the whole cage:
A detail showing the spacers next to the panels:
The build is still in progress, but this is the cage configuration I've decided to modify to on top of the excellent DragonStrand Atrium cage. YMMV.
Last edited:
