DIY Snake Rack - Freedom Breeder Tubs

[Rat160]

So my buddy and I decided that we wanted to build our own rack using 3/4" Melamine to fit freedom breeder tubs. I have put together this little DIY post in case anyone was interested.

These are the freedom breeder tubs we are using.


I started off with a little overview sheet of what size pieces we needed.



For this rack you need:

4 Sides - 36" X 22.5"
13 Shelves - 36" X 22.5"
12 Supports - 5 1/8" X 22.5" (NOTE: We also cut a couple extra supports, I will explain the use further down)
2 Back Pieces - 37 1/4" X 36"
4 Casters
2 Strips of 3/4" Plywood 35" X 6"
45 feet of 3" heat tape
2 electrical cords
Foil tape
3M Waterproof tape
Electrical Tape

So we bought our 4' X 8' sheets of melamine and had the company do rough cuts for us.

We then started doing final cuts on all the boards to get the desired amount of sides and shelves.

First we used a fence to cut the width of our boards.


We then used a slide jig that we made to cute the length of the boards


Then we repeated the same process to cut our support boards.


We clamped several of the supports together to make the next step quicker


We used a dado blade to cut a slot in the supports and all of the shelves for the heat tape to pass through.


After getting everything cut, we moved all of the wood into the snake room for assembly.


First we took one of the shelves (The bottom of the rack) and securd two sides to it. To make the first shelf we used some "Jig Boards" that we made.

We took the length of a shelf and subtracted the width of the melamine X3 (for the thickness of 3 supports), we then divided that number in half and cut boards to that length. This allowed us to place two supports on each side of the rack and one in the middle to hold the next shelf straight. (This is where the extra supports come in) We then placed our "Jig Boards" on either side of the center support to make sure the center support was straight and in the same place on every shelf.

In this picture you can see the three supports along with our "Jig Boards" with the first shelf sitting on top.


After screwing the shelf into place we repeated this process shelf by shelf.




After completing the first section, We just repeated all the steps for the second section. NOTE: We saved meleamine bu not putting a bottom on the top half of the rack. The top of the bottom cabinet serves as the bottom of the top unit.)


In this picture you can see the slots that we cut out to allow the heat tape to run under the supports.


This is one of the completed rack.


Then we flipped the bottom part over and layed down our two plywood stripes to put on the casters



Next we ran our heat tape throughout the rack and taped it down


Finally we nailed down the back and hooked everything up, the rack is complete.

This is the finished product. It is the rack on the far left.


I tried to put this in order best I could. If anyone has any questions or suggestions, please feel free to PM me.

Thanks.