Home made cages, have you made any?

So I started of wanting to buy Herman a cage but ongoing research shows that iguanas need far bigger cages than I was thinking.
I made some acrylic cages once that ended up looking really nice, but any time I tried working with wood I totally failed. Maybe though it was because I did not have the proper tools.
For what I would spend on a very large custom cage, I could buy some power tools and make the cage myself. I was sent a link to some blueprints but I could even make something fancier.
For those of y'all who are not skilled craftsmen (or women), how difficult is it to make a cage that is not only a good home, but looks decent as well?

Personally cage building came quite easy for me but large cages like for an adult iguana take help simply because it's hard to hold thing by yourself when they start to come together. If you can follow the blue prints and have you're own ideas then get to it.
Honestly what I did was started small and worked my way up. Measure twice, cut once blah blah blah.
The best wood I've found was melamine because it's already treated, has that laminate and looks really nice. Issue is it's really heavy and not really all that cheap.

Everyone's learning curve is different so really just jump in and start small. Learn by trial and error. Anything you build that you don't have a use for can also be sold.

Also I ended up splurging and using actually windows for my big cages. Again they looked nicer and made things significantly easier.

I hope that helped but if not give me a few more detailed questions and I'll do my best to answer.

I've made tons of cages, stands and racks over the years. I've have no 'training' or 'professional experience' with woodworking but I do find it fun to build things...


This is my most recent one, an 8' x 3' @ 3.5' tall enclosure for my 4' Tegu that doubles as a stand for a fish tank. The tank in place is a 125 gal but the stand will accomodate up to an 8' x 2x @ 25" tall 265 gal aquarium.



It's made much bulkier than a typical enclosure needs to be as it's built to hold in excess of a ton of water on it. For a simple lizard (or snake) enclosure a simple 2"x2" lumber frame shelled with 3/8" plywood would be sufficient (and A LOT easier to move).

The frame and shell are the important parts and the easy parts. It's the finishing stages that require more 'skilled' work. If you are happy with a painted finish, painting is simple. If you want to stain it, stain work is a bit more complicated but still not too bad. The biggest lesson I learned with staining is that extensive sanding is critical.

For me, the door was the most complicated part. I went with swinging doors as I like to be able to open the whole thing up and have access to the entire enclosure. But sliding doors are much easier to construct and install.

Standard glass is fairly cheap but comes with some risks. Plexiglas is more expensive than standard glass and comes without hazardous risks, but scratches very easily and once scratched is nearly inmpossible to buff out. I used tempered glass which cost the same as Plexiglas, if very difficult to break and has the scratch resistence of standard glass. I simply looked up glass shops in the Yellow Pages and called around comparing prices until I found one that made me happy.

Having the right tools for the right job is a very important detail. As mentioned measure twice (or more) and cut once. Plan plan plan plan plan! Study your drawings well and know them thoroughly, but still refer to them during ever step of construction. make sure your 90 degree corners are 90 degrees. If you have any hesitation to do something better, hesitate and do it better. If you get frustrated with a step, take a break.

Most importantly, take yoru time. Gettign the enclosure done quickly usually results in havign to make another one sooner. Take your time, think it through and do it right. That way you will have an end product that you and your animal can enjoy for many years to come.

Oh, also research the products you wish to use. I have foudn Drylok to be a very impressive product for sealing anything animal related.

http://www.lizardcages.fws1.com/iguanaworld.htm This might look a bit intimidating to someone with no real woodworking skills but it's really quite simple.I build houses for a living so to me it's very basic,but I'ld be happy to help walk you thru anything you're unsure of.

Christine, thank you for the advice and the idea on windows
Toby, what can I say, the cage you made is awesome
Dan, thanks for the link and thank you all for your offers of advice
I appreciate everyone's input, and my sons have offered help as well. I've been looking at power tools and materials and so on.

But I sort of wimped out for now because I have a few other home projects that have to be done first and I don't want Herman to have to stay in the 55 gal tank he came in- I bought a 4x4x2 cage off of CL that will hopefully get delivered today, I will post a pic later. I realize that it will not be big enough to house Herman when he is full grown but at near 2 years he (I don't really know the gender) is only 2 1/2 feet.