Smoothing edges for rat bins?

[Skittles46]

We've set up some rat "bins" like in the stickies, but have found ourselves with a question of how to put the hardware cloth on the inside without it being to sharp and catching the rats and hurting them. Any ideas?

[atp151415]

hot glue maybe

[AndrewGeibel]

I think the best way to do a rat bin like that is to leave extra on all sides of the wire mesh. and leave the extra so its not cut right at a square but so that the wire is poking out on all the edges. I can't think of how to describe this. Let me see if I can make a picture.

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
.......................

You want it so the edges of it to look like that. Then what you do is bend those extra wires 90 degrees. This way you will have a mesh grid would be raised off of the table if you set it down. Then what you do is heat up those edges so they are very hot. You then push those edges through the tub and since they are hot they will melt right through. Once through you can finish by bending the other 90 degrees so it locks them in place. I wish I had some pictures of this to show. It keeps the wire mesh on the inside and the sharp edges on the outside and doesn't allow the rats anywhere to chew.

[Gloryhound]

We built 3 of the rat bins and just hated them! They took up way to much room and for the cost of three of them I was able to build a 6 bin rack that so far my wife is loving. The time involved to make them was about equal also. Right now we use water bottles, but the cost of the rack will increase by a little once I add the auto watering system to it.

[littleindiangirl]

We've got a lot of lids and bins. For the hardware cloth edges on the inside, we used a good set of clippers and just cut down as far as possible.

You could also leave some wire on the edges (about 1/16 - 1/8 of an inch), and just bend over the ends with a needle point plier, facing that outside so they wont come in contact with the ends.

If you don't want to spend time doing that, get an air driven die grinder and cut the hardware cloth or file down the edges. The rats won't hurt themselves on the hardware cloth in my experience.

I spend too much time playing around with hardware cloth. LOL