This has to be the most legend idea I've heard in a while. I've been looking around, and Hides are so expensive for nice looking ones, and the snakes grow out of them, so it's kind of a waste.
I figured I could build one that looks like a pyramid, and one that looks like an African termite mound, since both those things tie into the whole ball python thing. Then I read that some people had problems with theirs dissolving, or going mushy from the humidity I guess. So I pondered a way to maybe make them more water tight, and I figured, why not try water based Polyurethane, since it dries to almost like plastic, and you can seal chipboard and ply wood cages with it. The first problem I could see with this is that the wet polyurethane might melt the whole thing...So, you would have to make the first coating very light, so that it dries before it can do much damage, maybe put it in front of a fan! Then from there you can make the second coat a bit thicker, and make a third final coat nice and thick. If you could get this to work, I think the Hides would be almost indestructible. Or you could spray it like normal with the spray on water proofing, and then give it a nice coat of polyurethane to seal it?
I am going to try this as soon as I have some spare cash to buy the polyurethane, it really sucks being a student, lol!!
If someone else wants to try this out, and make a dummy one just so we can see if the polyurethane idea works, that'd be awesome!!!