Help connecting wooden dowel rods?!?!

[JonnyB22]

My girlfriend and I purchased a 1 year old male veiled today. Yesterday I went out shopping and bought stuff for his cage (It still needs some more foliage). I got some wooden dowel rods from home depot for climbing purposes, since our little female absolutely loves them. I connected the dowels to the cage the same way that we did our little females cage, using thumbtacks through the screen into the dowels. Well I came home tonight to find most of the dowels laying on the bottom of the cage. At first I was worried our big guy was hurt after seeing this. But he acted fine. Is there any other way to connect the dowels to the cage. I attached some pictures showing his cage and our little females cage. The first Image is our "Reptile Room". The second Image is our little females cage and how it is setup. The third image is our new guys cage with the fallen dowels. Finally the fourth image is our handsome new guy sleeping!

 

[millerman6401]

if you do the same thing but use a washer on the outside of the cage and a small screw going into the washer it will hold it up. Also make sure you cut the dowel slightly larger than the opening in the cage because the screen will split if tightened too much. If you make the dowel slightly larger this problem doesnt seem to happen.

 

[millerman6401]

[/URL][/IMG]

Found a pic i had.. you can see the washer, there is a small screw on going through it and going into the dowel

 

[JonnyB22]

Thank you that helps out a ton. I didn't even think about the thumbtacks sliding out of the dowels with his weight. I guess we learn from mistakes right!

 

[millerman6401]

it also helps if you put the screws in the dowels first to get the hole started and then put them in place and rescrew them. Ive had a few dowles split because the screw didnt go in exactly straight. If this does happen you can wrap the ends in duct tape to keep them together.