The most time-consuming part for me was using a trowel to shape the strata lines and cracks of the rock. In some spots, I used wet newspapers to prevent all the mortar from pushing through the lath holes. With the frame and lath securely in place, I applied a couple layers of high strength mortar to the frame. I used pliers to loosely bend the lath into the shapes I desired. I then stapled mason's lath (wire sheet similar to hardware cloth, only with diamond shaped holes) onto the wood frame. I essentially just made a 3-dimensional frame out of scrap 2x2"s and 2x4"s. I'll do my best to describe what I did between the previous picture and this rock formation you see. Here's the part where I should've taken more pictures. Also I applied the front panels and trim to make it look pretty.haha Next, I primed the upper portion of the cage with a couple coats of Kilz Oil-based Outdoor primer.
ARGUS MONITOR ENCLOSURES WINDOWS
The windows I used were just cheap storm windows you can find at a home improvement store. I framed it in two portions, the lower and upper portions.The lower portion is lined with FRP panels (fiberglass reinforced plastic) and caulked extremely well with a silicon-based bathroom/kitchen caulk. I insulated the entire cage with R-13 home insulation to help maintain fairly consistent temps year-round. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the beginning stages, I didn't think to take photos until I had already done quite a bit of work on the cage.īasically, it is a large box roughly 8'x4'x7'. The following are photos of the various stages of the build excluding the framing of the actual cage. It was designed to be their raise up cage until I could build a larger adult cage. I began the cage about a month before the clutch of argus monitors were due by my calculations. You can find a good DIY on was my first attempt at building a cage with faux rock-work. Cement over foam direct will end up cracking and fall off.
You can also do the fame with plywood and screw various pieces of foam to make the shape, but the most important thing is that you have to put a layer of mesh the make the cement adhere to the surface. It take a LOT of patience.and some handwork skills.this is not something that can be done easly and fast! finally, i paint the roch with exterior acrylic paint dilued in water and sprayed with a garden sprayer pump. once that was done i covered the mesh with a coat of cement, and then i made a second coat were i made all the texturing.
ARGUS MONITOR ENCLOSURES ZIP
It took almsot 150 zip ties to tie the mesh to the frame. Heres some pics! these guys are just amazing.and not agressive at all(not that i would put pu face in the cage, but i can pick em up without too much trouble.įor the fake rock, i made a frame with 12 gage steel wire(one wire every feet screwed at each end, and the cross sections at each feet also tightened with zip ties), and then i covered the wires with a aluminium diamond lathe mesh. Im probably gonna make a hole with a small pipe to connect the 2 cages so the femeles can go side to side, but not the male. I have to admit that with the size of the male, i find the cage a bit small.that sucker is.HUGE! lol i think iam gonna make a seperate cage next to this one for the females.
0 kommentar(er)
