Question about Wooden Rack...

I'm getting a birch rack in January. I know to use non-toxic sealer and paint on it (I plan on sealing it and painting it black), but is there anything else or anything specific I should know about when picking out sealer and paint? Specifically oil or water-based, indoor or outdoor, etc.

No not really, avoid ones intended for bathrooms and decks actually any floor paint should likely be avoided spar varnish as well as it stays 'gummy'

The toughest finish is going to be marine epoxy, it is also costly and difficult to work with. It takes 7 days at warm temps to cure.
The next is liner polyurethanes (LP) they are two part and also hard to use and expensive.
Regular poly urethanes (varathane colors in plastic) would be next they are tough and hard wearing with out extreme cost and complications they do reguire a fair out gassing time (4-7 days at warm temps)

Enamel paint next reasonable in all respects and about the same for drying time as urethanes
Modified enamels are also good they are easy to wash up and ok for toughness.
Latex simple and cheap and not very tough. Less time to out gas as well.
tempuras totally non toxic and very little protection for the wood (no protection really) not very useful.

I will definitely need to make trip to home depot and just see what they have available. I'll print off your response so I can talk to someone who knows a lot more about this than I do.

If you do not have experience with two part coatings I'd avoid them they can be tricky and very expensive ( lp runs about 100$ a quart and once mixed it is going to turn to plastic if you are done or not.)

Look at polyurethanes just remember they need 7 days or so to fully cure in a well ventilated warm room.


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Are the polyurethanes safe to cure inside? Obviously it won't be anywhere near my snakes, but it's winter so it's pretty cool outside. The garage gets about 40-50*F out there. Inside, we keep the house around 67*F. My snake room is usually about 75* so it's the warmest, but I don't want the fumes to kill my snakes. I'm more worried about the fumes traveling to my room if I let it cure inside. Do you think that would be a problem?

It is just il paint it will smell 'painty' for a while them go away. It is not great to breath but when i paint in the winter I just crack the window a bit. Sometime with big projects I'll paint in the garage (it gets cold here 14ºF tonight) and just bite the bullet and run a heater over night (tarped off a section of the garage to save some heat) after that it usually is dry to the touch (8 hours) and it can be brought inside the majority of the fumes gone. to finalize the end.

If you are concerned and this is not possible latex paint is likely best, every persons situation is different and we have to do the best we can inside what we are able.

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Originally Posted by kitedemon

It is just il paint it will smell 'painty' for a while them go away. It is not great to breath but when i paint in the winter I just crack the window a bit. Sometime with big projects I'll paint in the garage (it gets cold here 14ºF tonight) and just bite the bullet and run a heater over night (tarped off a section of the garage to save some heat) after that it usually is dry to the touch (8 hours) and it can be brought inside the majority of the fumes gone. to finalize the end.

If you are concerned and this is not possible latex paint is likely best, every persons situation is different and we have to do the best we can inside what we are able.

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I'm living with my grandparents while I'm in school and they rarely run the heater. I'm having to fight them to run it because my bedroom was getting too cold for my snakes despite me running a small space heater (like a mini one used as an individual heater) and wrapping my racks with a blanket (since the rack is an open rack). My room was getting around 68-70*F with my tubs having an ambient temp of 73* which is too cool in my opinion for them. I like to keep the ambient temp 75*F or warmer.This is what has prompted me to purchased a closed rack system to help hold in heat.

I say all that to say, running a heater in the garage won't go over well with them. I'm not even sure a bad "paint" smell will either. I'll take a look into latex paints. At least that will work until I can get me some PVC racks. I mainly wanted something to coat the wood so hopefully the humidity and heat won't warp it too much.

You were planning on Baltic birch? it is very stable and is unlikely to warp much latex is fine it just scuffs up more. I did not mean to come off saying it was bad just not as tough. LP would likely not need to be re painted for many many years latex may need a fresh coat every 5-7 years it really isn't a big deal either way. Ply is very stable especially BB ply more than most and it is water resistant. I have a friend whom unit a rack recently and used crazy carpets on the sliding part of the shelves and put the flexwatt on that. It protects the paint from wear and slides better.

I run racks in a cool room as well. Closed pvcx racks and in the temps you are describing it will help some but I would venture a guess that the temps will still be on the cool side. Your corns are ok with those temps right?

Have you given though to custom enclosures? It might be easier to heat as there are more options. The other thought is locate the rack in something like this, http://www.bluegrassgardens.com/port...reenhouse.html (image is the first one I came to.) and just try to heat a smaller area. Just thoughts with out having thought it through very carefully.

I'm ordering the rack from a place called Evolution Reptile: http://www.evolutionreptile.com/econ...free-shipping/

They just said it was birch hardwood plywood, so I'm not exactly sure what KIND of birch. I'm not very handy with tools and the first rack I made (The one I'm using now) could use some significant improvements. That's why I figured that I would just have someone else do the cutting of the pieces.

As for temps, I know it won't make my temps perfect, but it should help some. It will also help in the summer when my room is a steamy 82*F and I'm dying of heat stroke. My hope is that it won't make my flexwatt run all the time and heat my room...just my rack thus lowering the ambient temp in the summer time. We've been in the 50s-60s*F here now and my room is back to a 79*F ambient temp which is fine with me. My corns don't seem to be having any issues. They all eat and shed normally and no one has any signs of illness. Granted...one of my corns survived a very cold winter in an apartment that was in the 50s. All she had was a heat lamp and she never got ill. My biggest concern is them getting URI. I would hate knowing that one of my snakes got sick because I couldn't keep my room warm enough.

When I first started building my collection, I thought about building a floor to ceiling custom enclosure system with multiple enclosures. However, I've got 9 snakes, another coming this week, and racks are more economical for me than a huge enclosure. I do, however, have one corn snake in a terrarium.

That greenhouse thing is pretty nifty! I'll have to look into that. I've basically made my rack out of the 5 shelf plastic shelving system. I've cut down the legs and glued some panel board on the bottom of the shelves so they run flush with my tubs so I don't needs lids. It's functional...but not ideal (The rack is pictured below). The flexwatt runs in the groove closest to the wall. I want to move my adults into better insulated racks and use that one as a quarantine rack or a baby rack.

http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/7495/img0452u.jpg

I may just bite the bullet and get a PVC rack. once I add the cost of paint and and other materials i would need to "modify" the rack and buy tubs for it, I can order one with tubs for only a little bit more. I guess I have a lot to think about!

Flexwatt usually doesn't effect ambient temps at all it is radiant heat source. There are a lot of options the real killer is the solution is yours alone. The answer that works for one person may not work for another.