Here is the single most easiest shelving unit a person can build.

Supplies:
10mm - metal rods
welder - hire one or get someone to weld for you if you don't know how
wood - for the selves
and a wood circle saw 20 - 30mm

The 3D pictures will explain it all. PS: this is 5mins in lightwave3D so I did not go full out on texture, lighting etc. You will notice at the top a square where you could bolt the entire frame to the wall.

OK, so I was a bit surprised when I saw what time had elapsed on this post, 1 year and 6 months, I thought that it had only been about 6months maybe a bit more, regardless it still taken it sweet time to arrive at this point.

I was in the process of going to get the wood cut when my brother in law asked me if I would build him a snake cage for he's 4.2 meter Burmese python, so I agreed to do so as I was going to be building mine anyway.

I put a design together for him, and instead of me driving up and down I put my plans on hold, and then put a whole cutting list of mine and my brother in laws together, so it gets done in one go and so he can pay he's half. :eyepoke:

My brother in law asked if he could give me the money at the end of the month, this went on for a couple of months end , eventually I had one hell of fight with him about he's condition of he's snakes and how they were kept and the size of the cage and some other things.He sold he's snake shortly after that. :happy:

Needless to say, I am now the proud owner of 3 sheets of uncut wood, and by the weekend I should be a prouder owner of 2 cabinets after I put some puzzle building skills to use.

Stanley A. Schultz wrote: Do us all one favor, if you please. Post photos from time to time as you progress in your project so the rest of us can watch what you're doing. Please merely add them to this thread so we can watch the progression as the project unfolds. And, we most definitely want to see what your setup looks like when it's finished.

As Stanley has asked, I will be doing updates of the project at hand.

So the start of the process, I did some double checking last night on my cutting list, I also added some smaller pieces of wood that will be used on the cabinet.

Bearing in mind, this will be my first cabinet I will be building, so I'm just going on common knowledge and learning in the process.
I'm only building 2 units for now, I'm building the arboreal and the medium tank cabinet the larger one will come at a later stage. (maybe another 2 years :lol: topicsucks )

My new cutting list.



I then went off to Timber city at 13:00 with my cutting list.

Quotation.



The parts list.



I should be receiving my order by Friday afternoon.

I did not receive my order on Friday afternoon as said by sales person, which was not an issue as I was busy with work and was heading out to family, but first thing Saturday morning I gave them a call, and the floor manager said that I can get in my car, by the time I arrive my order will be ready to go as they were just cutting the last sheet of wood.

I got my order by 10:30, loaded and ready to go.
Got home by 11:00, I then unpacked the wood and doubled checked everything and headed off to family again, ended driving through to Secunda to drop my Uncle them off as he's car broke on Friday night.
Got back On Sunday afternoon at 12:30, Started putting my cabinet together at 13:00, I worked till 18:00 then went out to family again.

This evening (Monday) I started at 17:00 and I was finished with the cabinet by 20:00.
Took me a total of 8 hours, would of been a bit less, but half way through the process of assembling I changed how I was fixing the center supports, So I basically took the center supports out and fastened them from the top down.
So that took me a couple of extra hours to redo. :eyepoke:

So here is a photo of the cabinet in all it's glory.



One thing I must say, it is a massive difference from a sketch on a piece of paper or measuring it out on the wall or in a space but having the unit standing in front of you, even the pieces of board just shows you the real size.

At a stage, I stood back and asked my self "what the hell I'm I doing?"
None the less the cabinet is standing, now for the finer details like the support beems and a bit more stabilizers, then I will be happy to start using to stack on.

One thing that I did change was the height of the cabinet, it was meant to be 2370mm high, which it has changed to 2280mm. I changed it for 1 reason, it was not going to fit into my spider.

I was meant to build 2 cabinets, but I will have to change the design a bit on the medium sized cabinet and the larger sized one as I'm a bit nervous that it will not be strong enough as the tanks are heavier and doubled the amount of the tanks than newly built arboreal cabinet.

So I'm looking at using supper wood instead, as it is stronger than pressed wood.
Will first see what this cabinet can handle once I have added all the supports.

Looks good. You going to be fitting heating as well ?

Sent from my GT-N7100 a long time ago and far, far away.....

Thanks.

No heating as yet.
As long as I have my spider room, I will just use the room for heating of my spiders through winter.

I have thought about using heating wire but trying to heat the whole cabinet will be more of a challenge than anything else.

Heat Wire solution:

You'll need

1. Heat Wire
2. Chocolate Box - Builders Warehouse
3. Aluminium tape - Buildwers Warehouse
4. Lamp switch - Builders Warehouse
5. Flex wire - Builders Warehouse

The aluminium tape stick to anything and is a good heat conductor, so you'll get maximum heat and minimum waste.
Depending on how you want to have the heat wire regulated you can connect individually to heat only certain shelfes. Or connect them all to run the whole cabinet with one switch.

You do get different wattage heat wire and they run slightly different temps.
I personally do not prefe to groove the shelf and inserting the wire. This is a lot of work and the wood swell easily because the surface is more dense to resist moist.

Just my opinion, if you need some assistance let me know.

My first cabinet were made of wood, but with backing. So I run the heat wire on the backing.
My second one this made of a steel frame with wooden shelving that fit neetly between the steel. Will post some pix of both for you.

For these T's I have a panel heater that is used @ night, Although I'm fortunate enough to have a 9m2 room just for my T's. One heater is most of the time enough, but use 2 in extreme cases.