Mephi's Adventures with Snake Tubs

[Mephibosheth1]

Greetings!!

So, I've kinda sold my parents on the idea of a snake rack to house Mycroft (and some other snakes in the future). That being said, I figured I should make a "dump thread" for the story of my escapades in trying to build this. So, I guess this is post 1 of my adventure.

My mother wants to buy one from eBay, but the type she's looking at only has 2 enclosures, and is a stand-alone cabinet type with PCV innards. I'm wanting to go for the more traditional rack system made of melamine, and powered by Flexwatt and a Herpstat. If I'm going to convince my parents about this type of rack, I need to know some about how difficult it would be to make myself (you should have seen the look on my mom's face when I told her I would make it myself).

So, some questions:

1) The location I have selected for this rack is an old entertainment center that has a large cubby for a CRT television. That large cubby measures 15" deep, 31" high, and 41" long. With a space that size, how large will each cubby in the rack be?? I've never built something like this, so I'm not sure how big each tub will need to be (I'm only keeping BPs in the rack).

2) What equipment will I need for working with the melamine?? I have a friend who can probably take care of any fine tuning of the sizes with a table saw, but are there special tools for drilling the pilot holes, etc??

3) How much Flexwatt will be required?? What is the best way to run the Flexwatt (one continuous section running from shelf-to-shelf) or individual strips on each shelf?? Does Flexwatt come with instructions on how to wire it?? And are those instructions useable for connecting the Flexwatt to a Herpstat??


I think these are all the questions I have for now…Thanks for the help

[Spektyr]

Cutting melamine can be done with a coarse blade on a circular saw if you don't care how it looks when you're done, it all comes down to final appearance. They make super-expensive blades specifically for cutting melamine cleanly, you can use a dual cut table saw... there's just tons of "go get a bank loan" options. For the rest of us who don't have professional cabinet makers and friends, there are other options. I've seen people get perfectly decent results with tape on the underside cutting with a circular saw and finishing blade. There's a lot to be found online if you do a search for "cutting melamine".

Personally, when I built my cage, I just had Home Depot cut the pieces and called it good. It wasn't perfect, but it was pretty damn close and (more importantly for my needs) the sizes matched each other. If you're trying to match cuts to existing things you may need more fine tuning than I did. One of the dimensions I had them cut came out an inch longer than I asked, but they were all the same amount over in that dimension so it still fit perfectly.

For drilling I just used a basic hand drill with ordinary wood drill bits. They'll cut a hole cleaner than the head of the screws you're using, no problem. If you want to relieve your pilot holes for the heads so that the screws are more flush-fit without crushing the melamine, find a drill bit that's about the same size or just a bit smaller than the head of the screw and then hand turn it to shave a funnel into your pilot hole. If you use a drill (like I did for the first few) you'll almost always send it too deep. It's a good hand workout to hand-relieve those pilot holes, but except for the odd shattered wine glass I've never regretted having better than average grip strength.


As far as the tub size and Flexwatt questions go, I'll defer to people with more expertise on the matter than I have.

[Mephibosheth1]

Thanks; pretty much answers Q2

Anyone with thoughts on 1 & 3??

[Mike41793]

So, some questions:

1) The location I have selected for this rack is an old entertainment center that has a large cubby for a CRT television. That large cubby measures 15" deep, 31" high, and 41" long. With a space that size, how large will each cubby in the rack be?? I've never built something like this, so I'm not sure how big each tub will need to be (I'm only keeping BPs in the rack).

2) What equipment will I need for working with the melamine?? I have a friend who can probably take care of any fine tuning of the sizes with a table saw, but are there special tools for drilling the pilot holes, etc??

3) How much Flexwatt will be required?? What is the best way to run the Flexwatt (one continuous section running from shelf-to-shelf) or individual strips on each shelf?? Does Flexwatt come with instructions on how to wire it?? And are those instructions useable for connecting the Flexwatt to a Herpstat??


I think these are all the questions I have for now…Thanks for the help

1. The cubby or shelf sizes will depend on if you want to do 32qt tubs or 41qt tubs.

2. No special tools. A power drill, small drill bit, and screws are all you need. Predrilling the holes for the screws will prevent cracking. Using a countersink bit would be even better but not a necessity.

3. I think it'd be easier to do one long piece of flexwatt. The way u figure out how much you need is build the rack then run a piece of string along the track you'd wanna put the flex Watt, like along the shelves and stuff. Then cut the string and lay it out and just measure it.
If you get it from Reptile Basics rich will wire it for you if you just ask. It doesn't wire into the herpstat specially or anything. It plugs into a power strip and then that plugs into your flex watt.


Sent from my SCH-I435 using Tapatalk

[dillan2020]

The 15 inches deep is gonna be a problem. the normal 28 and 41 qt bins are over 16 inches wide. so you may have trouble finding bins that narrow that are big enough for an adult bp.

[Mephibosheth1]

I can make it wider if I need to; the bottom of the cubby goes out farther than the sides. Are 41qt tubs the "standard" size for bps??

[dillan2020]

Yes 41 qt seems about standard size for adult bps. you should have room for 4 bins in your tv stand with a few inches to spare over the top.

[Mephibosheth1]

Awesome!!

I'll be looking into supplies this weekend maybe, so I'll let you know what I come up with.

Where in Home Depot is the melamine sold??

[dillan2020]

In the home depot here it is in the isle with the wood molding and finished pine boards.

[Spektyr]

Also check in the shelving area. Depending on the size of pieces you end up needing, and how much you need, it may be easier to buy the melamine shelving boards. Those often have one edge pre-finished.

Just remember, the dimensions listed for lumber are rarely the actual dimensions of that lumber. 2x4's are not 2" by 4", they're smaller in both dimensions (usually by about half an inch). The melamine sheet I bought recently was stated as 48" x 96". I didn't double-check the length because I wasn't using all of that, but the width was actually 49". Take a tape measure with you and double-check everything.

I don't know why they even put measurements on things if they're not going to give the actual measurements, but that's what they do. Twelve inch tile? Not always 12 inches. Annoying.