# Oh yes, another great bargin unit for a diamond enclosure :D



## shea_and_ruby (Jul 21, 2011)

After this one is done there will literately be no more room in the house for large scale enclosures. This one was $20  So planning to pick it up Saturday but wont be working on it for a while as the diamond is only 5 months now. 

So anyways, the plan is to cut the front away completely, and have it as one tall tank without the cupboards on the bottom. the front will be perspex again as with the others, and the doors will be on the side. this one is going to take more work as we (when i say 'we' i really mean hubby and i will stand there passing tools and drinking coffee) will need to add backing to it. 

so will be a good couple of months away, but thought i would get this started.


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## abnrmal91 (Jul 21, 2011)

God damn. You definitely a bargin hunter. But I think your and addict for conversions lol.


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## pythonmum (Jul 21, 2011)

Nice score! I like to leave the cabinet in the bottom because there is always so much herp stuff to store there. My last unit has nest boxes, click clacks, spare thermostats, newspaper, sphagnum moss and other odds and ends in the cupboard.


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## shea_and_ruby (Jul 21, 2011)

its my hubby that really gets into doing them up, he's really artistically minded when it comes to things like this. plus it helps being a tradie! i attempted to do some 'finishing touches' on the jungle tank and i messed up. needless to say i am no longer allowed near the brushes....

yeah thats what we have done with the bottom of our bredli and bluey enclosures pythonmum.

ok, so we picked it up this morning, and since we have almost done the bredli enclosure, we are going to get started on this one tonight after kiddies are in bed. so we are cutting out the bottom shelves and gutting it. was thinking of having that top shelf as a basking spot, but as it would be too close for a heat lamp, was thinking we might put downlights in. question is how many? it is about 15 - 20 cm between the roof of the enclosure and the basking spot. also, can you different watts for downlights??


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## shea_and_ruby (Jul 25, 2011)

so we have cut away the shelves and gut the inside. last night we added the foam to make the brick work for the ruins and also the trees which runs from top to bottom of the enclosure. we wont render until friday i dont think as i am back to full time uni and hubby is all over the place. but here is a pic of the work so far.


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## Beloved_Reptiles (Jul 25, 2011)

Looking great Shea! Can't wait to see the end result, he's getting them done so quickly!


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## shea_and_ruby (Jul 25, 2011)

he has a lot of free time during the day once the kids are at kindy and im at uni. plus he really enjoys doing them


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## J-A-X (Jul 25, 2011)

that's what I need, a couple of days (or better yet, a couple of weeks :lol: ) home instead of going to work, it sucks only being able to do 2 -3 hours a night, and because its so wet and cold here lately stuff is taking forever to dry.
and if I could stop people visiting on the weekend, that would be great too ! I have way too many interuptions and it drives me nuts !! maybe i should tell people i'm going away on holiday and hide the car somewhere (there's no room in the shed to hide it - too many bags of foam and enclosures-in-waiting ......and its a double garage PMSL)


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## shea_and_ruby (Jul 25, 2011)

oooo speaking of foam, we drove past harvey normans on sunday afternoon amd they have a skip bin FULL of foam! we scored big time  i am assuming they were going to throw it out anyway......


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## J-A-X (Jul 25, 2011)

a lot of foam is now recyclable, so they usually have a bin allocated for it, thats what we have at our work, i've probably saved them heaps by not having to pay to get it picked up. LOL, got to love freebie foam, and i bet you scored some nice chunky bits too, with a little bit of imagination you can come up with some really great ideas as to "what'' the foam can be. oh and when i said 'bags' of foam, im not talking shopping bags, theyre the big hessian bags that sit in the metal frames, probably about a metre tall, :shock:


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## shea_and_ruby (Jul 26, 2011)

lol thats a lot of foam! you can get out of making these tanks relatively cheaply if you know where to look and what to get. 

we wont be rendering until friday which is a bummer, but at least then it should b ready for hubby to dry brush early next week


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## Jewyy95 (Jul 26, 2011)

looking good, but how are you goign to get the snake out of the pipe when it goes up higher?


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## shea_and_ruby (Jul 26, 2011)

pipe will be totally sealed off, think hubby has already done it acutally. we/he is going to totally render over it so no one can sneak in (hopefully!)


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## patonthego (Jul 26, 2011)

Here is a dummy question what is rendering?? I amm hopeless at carpentarty and my hubby is worse than me!! I am a clean expert and he is the gardening worker


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## shea_and_ruby (Jul 26, 2011)

hubby does it all and i just watch lol its like a type of cement, but its an acrylic version, maybe some one more qualified can answer that better than I. but bascially we are going to sculpt it with coloured cement/acrylic and then add more paint with a brush to detail it further. hoept hat makes sense!


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## J-A-X (Jul 26, 2011)

rendering on these projects is the same theory as rendering a house, houses use to be cement rendered, but now there is an acrylic render which is more flexible and dries quicker, it is reasonably easy to work with, when i get home i'll flick you the link to the DIY group discussion on render/cement/grout coatings. 

here you are patonthego.. the pleasure and pain of picking a coating for your project.
http://www.aussiepythons.com/forum/...rounds-furniture-225/cement-grout-render-432/

I would have left the pipe open both ends, would have made for a great game of hide and seek  (joking.)


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## shea_and_ruby (Jul 30, 2011)

ok, so rendering and staining done. we have only done one thinish coat of render, i suggested to hubby we do a second but he only wants to do one. So we shall see. I freaked otu today and realised we hadn't put doors in, but then hubby reminded me the whole front is a door! lol


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## J-A-X (Jul 31, 2011)

Might pay to tell hubby that doing only one thin coat makes it look like render covered foam, it the addition layers that disguise the fact that it's foam blocks  it sounds like he's losing interest and is just rushing to get them finished


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## shea_and_ruby (Jul 31, 2011)

well he thinks that it will loose detail if we do another. will try and talk him out of his one coatedness lol


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## J-A-X (Jul 31, 2011)

Does he use a gas torch to make the flat pieces look more like rock and take some of the squareness off the edges?


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## shea_and_ruby (Jul 31, 2011)

normally he attacks them with knives and what not but this time he wanted to keep them square, but i think he may be coming around. prehaps tuesday night we might add another coat....


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## shea_and_ruby (Aug 9, 2011)

So, after hubby applied a second coat it looked a million times beyyer. he did however take the skin of the tops of his fingers doing it, but it looks better for it lol so after letting it set for ages, he put the first lick of paint on and will be doing detailing and dry brushing tomorrow


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## shea_and_ruby (Aug 14, 2011)

Righto, so the painting has been done and hubby sealed it before i could ruin it with any more attempts to dry brush. turned out as well as we could have hoped for a first attempt at something like this. downlights are in, door is almost ready to go, and hubby is cutting the vents as we speak. we also found a cracked buddha head we are going to use as a hide down the bottom. should be completed by the middle of the week!


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## python_dan89 (Aug 14, 2011)

nice work.. i love it


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## shea_and_ruby (Aug 14, 2011)

here is the buddha head hide


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## Sofoula88 (Aug 15, 2011)

First of all I love that you posted pics and updates of all the stages..very nice work, it's looking great, although at first I was sad to see those cupboards go,must of been a lovely cabinet back in the day lol.. And yougot it for $20..score! And then the free foam..double score.. New high level!!! Lol.. Anyway keep the updates coming ..looks great so far!


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## shea_and_ruby (Aug 15, 2011)

thanks for that. me and hubby finally foudn something we like doing together (well, more like i tell him what i want, stand there, get coffee and hold the lights/tools). i think we keep buying more reptiles just so we can do the tanks up lol

second coat of the sealer has gone on, so this arvo we wil be adding plants and testing out heating. will give it a good few weeks for it to air out and then the door will go on!


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## Sofoula88 (Aug 15, 2011)

Too bad you live in syd..I have a nice big wardrobe outside that looks like it needs to be converted into a snake tank lol..too bad I hae no snakeys =[.. well keep the updates coming..I already think it looks great and I like the tree through the middle idea..very creative

Oh I forgot ..what did you use to seal it with?


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## shea_and_ruby (Aug 18, 2011)

i think we used the pondtite stuff. he does abuot 2 - 3 coats.

ok, so the plants are in and door is on. just need to put the perspex on, put the vines in and get another hide for the top area.


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## cadwallader (Aug 18, 2011)

wow that came out great didnt it


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## Sofoula88 (Aug 18, 2011)

I want to live in there..it looks that good lmaobut it's missing the LCD..Lol


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## J-A-X (Aug 18, 2011)

Looks good, have you got the next one planned?


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## shea_and_ruby (Aug 19, 2011)

well jax, funny you should mention it, the guy down the road was putting stuff out for council pick up and he had this tv stand. so will probably make it an inbetweener for our new bubba MD we got. but that one i have no idea where it wil go.......


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