Rack Project in the works HELP!!!

Ok so I am taking on the task of building a rack to get those horrid tanks out of the herp room. I have seen them made out of wood and out of MDF and so on. Those of you with racks of your own design help me out here. What did you use to build yours. Are you happy with the way they turned out. Are there any little tricks I should know? Were there things that you would do different, change, beef-up, trim down, ect. I plan on priming it with Kiltz to handle the humidity and heat of the open tubs. Any thing considerations I should take into account for the flex watt? I have heard that covering it with that foil tape adds to the look and helps distribute the heat more evenly.

Thanks ahead of time for the help and I will get pics up as I am building it to keep an up date.

If your snakes are housed in a room with warm ambient temps (~82), and a good relative humidity, I would recommend an open air rack. I've built a couple modifying these exotics by nature's plans, and I love them. They are very functional, and very lightweight. I know Tim (Muddoc) has built some like these too, and has been pleased with them. I still have some melamine and plastic racks, but I plan on switching everything over to open air in the future. If your tubs need to be warmer than room temp though, you'll probably need a closed rack design. If using wood, you'll want to use 3/4" for structural integrity, but be warned that a rack built with any wood product will weigh A LOT! Let us know what type of rack (open/closed, adult/juvie, size etc.) and those who have built a good number of racks could give you better advice.

-Evan

Well I do have the Room temp and RH% for the open air system. However with the screen top my wife will feel a little better if they are a closed type. I plan on building a Juvie and a sub/Adult. I am starting a breeding project and wish to just have everything inorder. Also I house a few hachlings for a rescue/herp store here in town from time to time and having a juvi rack set up and ready to go would save me having to set up a 10 gal for temp. use till they get it housed.

Thanks for the help guys

This rack took me 30 minutes to build.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...01Eggs0001.jpg

Jas - did you finish or treat the wood in any way?

We are on the verge of turning an entire wall of our basement into a fixed rack system for multiple sizes and I've just begun pricing everything - for the number of slots we're aiming for melamine is a bit nuts and not realily available locally in large sheets. I saw Lowes had some MDF but it didnt look like it could be used without sealing/finishing.

Be careful with MDF it doesn't glue real well you have to do your joints differently. And screws just tear it up alot of times

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Originally Posted by Freakie_frog

Be careful with MDF it doesn't glue real well you have to do your joints differently. And screws just tear it up alot of times

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Yeah once I was standing in front of it I was left kind of dumbfounded - it looked like it would be easier to use graham crackers than that.

Jas where's the flexwatt?

Yea MDF is wood chips and Paper pressed in to boards. Real tough stuff to workd with.

I've never found the melamine coated particle board to be hard to work with. It is very sturdy at 3/4" and if you predrill your holes, it works just fine(drill the screws in slow though as they can strip the wood). I built a rat cabinet cage out of it, measurements are 3ftx2ftx4ft with levels and whatnot, and it's been over 2 years, and the cage still looks like it was just built(well.. except for the wee...).

This is what I plan on building my rack out of and hopefully it goes just as well.