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Making my own cage furniture...

Sanitary Water Dish inserts...

Everyday, long term use as a water container makes me nervous.
I like the idea of a water dish insert.

One could take there favorite size of water dish, mold /create a Sculpey design around the outside... and make up their "designer" matching hide / water dish cage furniture
with an easily cleaned and exchanged water dish feature incorporated.
By having two dishes available and by simply exchanging dish inserts, keeping a sanitized clean water dish always available would remain an easy task.

Put a drainage hole underneath where the dish will sit in your design, (because you can, why not?),
and after drying, give it a good sealing spray (a couple, three times times, seal it well). Available in dull Matte or shiny usually.

That would tend to be easier and probably give better results for most people, rather than trying to deal with mixing two liquids together and painting with the resulting "thick honey" like consistency of a product.
Messy is probably an understatement.

There are commonly available spray polymer (plastic) coatings in the spray paint section of most souper douper Mega-Marts type stores and also hardware stores too.
 
These are such excellent ideas - thank you everyone.

I am always wary about sealants especially for water bowls, and so I particularly like the idea of using a waterbowl insert. The colour combinations you can make with these clays are fantastic.
Hmmm....which morph of hide to use today?
 
CowboyWay...

That's how I always do my water bowls...except the polymer clay is permanently adhered to the bowl. I'm enclosing a picture of the inside of one of my bowls. I'll put the picture of the outside in another post.
 

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And here is the outside...
***By the way, this water bowl is for sale if anyone is interested.***
 

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I guess I should post pictures of a couple of my hides

The following two pictures are old and are both of small hides (cereal-bowl-sized). I don't have any pictures of my newest hides. I hope to get a new battery for my camera this weekend, so I can take some more pics!
 

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BloodyCats

BloodyCats said:
Here's a pic of my "broken column" hide with my 22-inch cornsnake in it for scale.
Your picture didn't show up. Will you please post it again?
 
It's been a year since I posted the pics of my hides. They are all still very much in use, and so are the water bowls. I usually rinse the bowls every other day when I change the water and I give them a good scrub with soap once a week, and occasionally I put them in the dishwasher, top rack, and they do just fine. No problems. My leopard geckos, tarantula and emperor scorpion also have hides and water bowls made of sculpey. I feed my crickets in shallow sculpey dishes.
 
Thank you!

I wasn't happy with a lot of the cage accessories at the local stores and was having trouble finding guidelines on acceptable materials for hand made ones. This thread was a tremendous help. I can't wait to start making some of my own decor. Biggest concern right now is water dish coating. Bought a corner dish that had cool marbling and appeared to be a resin of some sort. Kept spring water in it. Was cleaning and noticed the material looked kinda bleached from water and sort of slimy on bottom. Scraping the slimy bottom and it looks like some of the material was coming up, which freaked me out. Am using a shallow ceramic potting dish now (finished on inside). Really appreciate the material suggestions!
 
I love everyone's creativity here! I've been thinking about building my babies homes. I never considered useing Polymer Clay. As far as the sealant. My Gram owns a ceramic shop, and uses for dishes and bowls eating safe sealant gloss, do you think this would be ok for them? I plan on now going out and getting some clay later tonight to amuse myself tomorrow. :)
 
I found this older thread, is anyone still making things for their vivs? Anything really interesting or just hides and bowls?
 
Need to build a rack for larger tubs then have 2 ideas. 1) Hammock. Trapeziodal piece of mesh or fabric. 2 corners come out holes on the narrow side of tub, 2 corners come out on long side of tub. Stick a pin or something through them to keep them from failling back inside. 2) PVC climbing tree. Use (1" or 1.5"??) pipe and connectors to make something to climb on. Fill the pipes with something heavy, then seal all the ends. Scorch it with a torch to brown it but don't ignite it or burn a hole. Looks very cool. Used to be a picture here or on Fauna but I can't find it. Here's another idea for hides and PVC pipe
 
found the pic or torched PVC climbing tree. link
Here's a photo from the thread. I've seen a few other pics as well with different styles and size of pipe.
 

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These are all really creative ideas. I have been using some of my home made pottery in my vivs but nothing as cool as these. Thanks for digging up this thread it was way before my time!
 
The clay idea is such a great idea! I just went out to the craft store and bought some Sculpey clay! I'm making Kahn 2 new hides now! I love the marble look! ...too many exlaimation points, I know, I'm sorry. I'm just very giddy.
 
I just made 2 new hides! One for the warm side, one for the cooler side!

100_1297.jpg
 
Anyone have tips for low cost things to add to viv for? For example paper towel roll used as hide (free)... Or climbing pvc pipes...
 
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