Casting and molding

I see alot of cages and set ups with casted or molded backgrounds. Take the Exo Terra Cages. They use a foam like molded background. The one thing I'm asking here is what is safe to use for reptiles? I see the Dishes that are molded from a Resin based substence but what is it really? I have about 60 gal of Resin here in the house but I dare not use it for the fear that it would be toxic to my reptiles.

I'm wanting to experment with my castings that I do have for my Carpet Pythons new cage, my Beardie cage and for my frogs and Geckos that I'm getting.

Any useful advice would be awesome.

if you go to beardeddragons.org and look at some of the past enclosure posts, they'll give you pictures and idea on how to make a custom rock wall. With grout and polyurethane and big messy words like that. I used to have a link to a few different sites that made showed you how to make custom rock walls, they had 'caves' and ledges. It's a pretty cool project. I am sure if you ask they'll direct you in the right direction.

ohh ohh thank you :) :hug:

Pssst.... Great Stuff (Spray expanding foam) from HD works wonders for making false rock walls to an enclosure. Its used a lot for vivs w/ dart frogs.

Notta problem. Let us know how it all works out.

well beardeddragons.org os not there any more or some one bought it out and is ueing it for a search website. Bummer, but I did find this place [url]http://bearded-dragons.com/boards/index.php[url] is this the place you were talking about?

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Originally Posted by JBallPython

Pssst.... Great Stuff (Spray expanding foam) from HD works wonders for making false rock walls to an enclosure. Its used a lot for vivs w/ dart frogs.

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your kidding me?? REALLY?? I have like 50 large cans in my wood shop that are just lying around. .... oooo i might have some fun tonight. :cool:

Do you paint it and seal it with anything specific after the shaping stage?

I've always been intrested in these things but sadly I'm ambi-sinister.:(

dr del

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Originally Posted by jessie_k_pythons

your kidding me?? REALLY?? I have like 50 large cans in my wood shop that are just lying around. .... oooo i might have some fun tonight. :cool:

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What a lot of people with vivs will do is take that shredded coconut husks and after the foam is dry....smear it with silicon and stick the shredded husks all over to give it a natural look...otherwise if you're good with an airbrush...you can probably create some natural looking rocks.

Make sure it doesn't have a mildew resistant additive...there are two types of great stuff...but off the top of my head I don't remember which is the stuff. I have the safe stuff, it comes in a red can. Do a bit of a search on it...

I have the red stuff as well. We use it in the Car Audio world to fill in trunk gaps, door gaps and if the car is "walled off" we use it between the wall sides and the bare metal of the car body.

another question i have is what is the difference between Castinf Resin and Fiberglass Resin? (witrh out the added Fiberglass of corse)

I make Fiberglass Resin stuff all the time, in car audio stuff, Cosmedic work on cars and sculpt with it. once it is dryed, sanded and washed (again and again) it seems to be just fine. but I'm still a little weary of it.

I am sorry I plural-ed BD. Here is the site: http://www.beardeddragon.org/

What the others suggested may work too the only thing is (I am not familar with how Good Stuff feels once it hardens, is it soft or rock hard?) is would a beardie be able to gouge or scratch at your finished product. Goodstuff covered in coconut husk.

Good stuff and coconut husk with live plants works well with tree frogs, there are a few forums out there that work solely in vivarium design. They'd be able to help you more, if your need it. ALso if you google Vivarium Design you'll come across a few sites that teach you the basics of vivarium design. It's very cool. I've dreamed of babbling it in and thought it would be fun to be the person who designs zoo animal enclosures, but money is an option and schooling well...maybe some other time.

this came up fairly recently too, about backgrounds, and yeah great stuff is awesome... actually here's a dart frog vivarium being put together.black jungle has a great step by step procedure, with an impressive finished product.

I went thru cleaing my Favorites list a week ago and go rid of my vivarium design folder which had a list of sites. As qiksilver said, Black Jungle is a great place to begin.

Handi-Foam is supposed to be 100x better than Great Stuff. It's a black foam, it's safe and is carves and shapes easily. Most people press coco fiber or dry moss, as well as branches and logs onto/into the foam while it's still wet, than rub off the rest when it's dry.

I have carved the "Great Stuff" easly with a dremal and X-acto. fun stuff.

I know this is an old post, but I just found this if anyone is interested.

http://708designs.netfirms.com/custo...customcage.htm

and this:

http://www.beardeddragon.org/articles/falserock/

Old post or not this is really working out well. Thank you all. I'm working on a cage for the bearded dragon and I built a cage (dont know what for yet) to test my building and wood working skills and I might put a nice 3D bg on that one too. Also one more problem is sealing the wood so the water wont warp the MDF.

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Originally Posted by jessie_k_pythons

Old post or not this is really working out well. Thank you all. I'm working on a cage for the bearded dragon and I built a cage (dont know what for yet) to test my building and wood working skills and I might put a nice 3D bg on that one too. Also one more problem is sealing the wood so the water wont warp the MDF.

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What's MDF?

Hi,


I think it stands fopr medium-density fibre-board.

Though I could of course just be making that up.



dr del

Micro Density Fiber. you were very close :D MDP is medium-density Partical board, I wont touch that stuff with a 40 foot poll. lol bad ju ju.

MDF is very smoth, wont splinter and is made of micro saw dust (as fine as white flower) and wood glue that has been heated and pressed under extream pressure. good stuff. the saw dust can be made into a wood filler that gives the object being made a seamless look. and can be just as strong as the wood it's self. it is heavy and very strong.