Experianced Cagebuilders help please!

Hello everyone, so I'm moving along with my plans for a cage and was wondering if I could get some opinions/ideas/criticism and all that on these plans I have. Here is a sketch and below are the reasonings for why everything is the size that it is, along with a description of how it will all go together. I realize this is time consuming and probably very boring for those of you with the most experiance but I assure you it is MUCH appreciated.

Ok, enough jibber jabber :P




Ok, the first sketch is of how I plan to cut a 8'x4' 3/4" Oak Plywood board.

A - Top of the cage, 48"x24"
B - Bottom of the cage, 48"x24"
C - Left side of the cage, 24"x34"
D - Right side of the cage, 24"x34"
E - "Outside Top Lip" 46.5" x 2 1/2"
F - "Outside Bottom Lip" 46.5" x 10 1/2"
G - Back of the cage 46.5" x 34"
H - "Bottom Rear Dam" - 46.5" x 11"
I - "Top Rear Dam" - 46.5" x 3"
J - Bottom Face Piece - 49.5" x 11 3/4"
K - Top Face Piece - 49.5" x 3 3/4"
L - Left side face piece - 20" x 1 1/4"
M - Right side face piece - 20" x 1 1/4"

For these pieces please refer to the following link. These represent the substrate damn and piece where the track for sliding glass doors will go.
For these pieces also follow the below link, they will be like the final thing added in the link. Just for astetics.
http://www.freewebs.com/crossfireenclosures/

I will get 2 pieces of glass measuring 24"x19 3/4 inches (allowing 1/4" for the tracks) that way they will overlap by an inch or two in the middle.

With the damns I will have about 10" of room for substrate with another 1" left over to prevent substrate from getting into the tracks for the glass doors.

Do all the cuts seem like they will be realisitc? I was reading in a woodworking text that trying to get 2 24" pieces out of a 48" piece is unrealistic because some wood is lost just from cutting. If I get it cut at home depot will these pieces still come out close enough to be able to put this thing together?

The final measurements will be: Outside 48" x 24" x 35 1/2" and Inside will be 46 1/2" x 22 3/4" x 34".

If anyone sees any errors in my calculations or perhaps somewhere that I could improve my plans please let me know!!

I'm sorry, should've realized that the sketches should be horizontal. I cannot edit my post (If a mod could do that I'd be much obliged)

Here they are.

I haven't worked out your full plans, it's a little harder for me to do that with someone else's plans than it is with my own as I go, but I do notice one problem right off that might cause you a little trouble.

First, if piece A is 48" and piece C is 24", then piece D will not be 24".
I know that 48+24+24=96, but you have to allow for the saw cuts, as you mentioned, which in this instance there will be two. That may not seem like much loss, but it's enough to make piece D 23 3/4, which is enough to throw the cage out of square. Actually in this case, since it's a side piece, it will leave you with a gap because that side will be 1/4" narrower than the top and bottom.
Similarly, pieces A and B will not be a full 24" wide, and you'll need to split that cut line perfectly to have them the same. They will be very close to 24", and will work, but that cut will have to be perfectly straight for that to happen.

When I'm cutting 4x2 pieces from plywood I usually use the existing 48" measurement and just cut 24" off the length.
In the end though this might require an additional piece of plywood. You'd just have to rework the sketches to see.
You're doing a good job laying it out though, that's exactly how I do it in order to minimize waste and get the idea of how I will cut the pieces.

As far as getting it cut at Home Depot, they do have the jig to cut full sheets in square, but it's dependent on the abilities of the person running the machine. If they know what they're doing you'll have fine square pieces. I've heard of both good and bad results with having them cut it for you, it just depends on who it is that's cutting it.

Thanks Clay,

That's what I was reading in a book that it's unrealistic to get the full use of the wood because cutting it will result in some loss. How do you overcome this? I cant reasonably buy a new piece of plywood for every part of the cage =\

If I rotated the cut between C & D to basically be an extension of the cut between A & B an additional 34" for the sides then the diff. between the horizontal depth of the cage would be equally "off" right?

I've contacted a bunch of carpenters on my local craigslist and asked them to give me quotes for building this thing and I was planning to maybe "assist" them for free so that I could pick up some of what they're doing. Who knows.

I dont really mind buying more plywood if I'm sure that it'll work out properly. Anything under $400 total cost is a win for me as it'll cost more than that to get a similar cage custom built and shipped to me.

Nevermind, I see why that would not work now.

I'll work on some new sketches using 3 pieces of plywood.

A simple solution would be to rework your measurements so that the cage is 23.5" instead of 24. The half inch reduction would leave enough wiggle room to get all the cuts in.

Aside from that you can probably utilize the left over from the second piece.
Rotate pieces A and B 90 degrees. The 48" will already be there, just cut them the full 24" wide. Then rotate piece C 90 degrees and cut it the full 24".
Then cut piece D out of the roughly 30x50 scrap piece left over from cutting the other piece of plywood.

Without going through the other measurements, that might get the pieces cut the full size without the need for an additional piece of plywood. Which would be nice since that oak ply isn't cheap.

One piece of plywood was 3/4" the other was to be 1/2".

So that wouldn't work

I see then. I saw the note on the first pic that said 1/2" plywood, but when I saw the measurements I saw it was for 3/4 and didn't realize that it was actually both. I didn't scroll over far enough to see it in the second pic.

The sides could actually be 1/2" as well. I've built 4x2 cages that way to reduce weight. Bringing that in at this point would completely foul up your measurements though haha.