New enclosure. From this...to this...to this!

[MC-Boks]

Just finished making a new display enclosure and thought I'd share some pics....

Back in July I got hold of a black tubular steel shop fitting, just the frame really. It was over 2m tall but only 80cm x 50cm floor. Still it had potential, good for a jungle or coastal.



So after preparing the frame and fitting a new floor, I got some glass fitted, thanks to Glass Now at Nerang.

 

[RELLIK81]

nice!!!...cant wait to see it finished

 

[MC-Boks]

Next I visited a friend who lives in the bush to try and find an interesting branch of a suitable size. After an hours hike up and down the side of a mountain I finally found one just 100m from the house. Murphy strikes again.



Quite a bit of character to that branch.

 

[MC-Boks]

Next a trip to Bunnings to pick up some supplies.



It was fun trying to fit this into the car, thats for sure.

The size of the frame meant that I could utilise interior doors as the back and sides of the enclosure. The sides are now full length doors and provide great access. Hanging them was interesting as I've never tried anything like that before.

 

[Just_Plain_Nuts]

have you still not finished this michael?? haha need any help?

 

[MC-Boks]

So after a couple of weeks it was pretty much done.


Added some shelves, the branch and some jungle vines. Not bad. Certainly functional but hardly inspirational. It needed something more.
So after reading lots of posts here and elsewhere, I thought I'd try my hand at making a fake rock wall backdrop.

 

[MC-Boks]

It's coming Ben, just give me a moment. Hahaha!!!!

 

[MC-Boks]

So time for some more salvaged material from work. This time lots of poly styrene. The major pieces come from the bbq's we sell. The garage was soon full of poly styrene and I was....well, lets just say I wasn't flavour of the month for a week......or five!!! LOL. I'm sure I'm not alone there.


Who would have thought that carving the poly would be sooo much fun. And not as messy as I would have thought.

 

[MC-Boks]

As I'm not particularly artistic I thought something sort of natural rather than trying to replicate an actual place or theme as others have done. So I scoured the net for pics of rock walls etc and finally came across this...

As the styrene pieces had shelf like bits moulded into it already it lent itself to this design.

 

[the jungle guy]

looking good mate, im glad im not the only that really over loads there car hehe

 

[Mick2530]

Thats awesome very inspirational. What paint r u using on the foam.

 

[MC-Boks]

The next thing was to install some tubing to hide the thermostat and temp probes. The idea was to conceal them within some foam without really covering them up and then disguise them with the render.


Not have tried this before I didn't know just how much impact all that insulation would have on the temperature readings, but as you can see in this pic there is only 0.1 degree difference which is actually the normal variance for this individual unit, so I guess that counts as working. (This pic was taken after the rendering but I was checking the readings at each stage.)

 

[MC-Boks]

Test fitting to make sure it was going to fit.....


It did.

 

[MC-Boks]

Then the rendering. I used Boscote, an acrylic render, and mixed in extra PVA for strength. 5 coats of render with a day or two inbetween each.

Another fitting to make sure. Then it was time to paint.

 

[MC-Boks]

First coat was a 3 in 1 acrylic sealer, primer, undercoat. Followed by two coats of the base colour. The paint is Dulux 101 super acrylic wash and wear.



After that I added additional paint to break up the solid block look, a bit like camoflage I guess.

Then I got some plastic aquarium plants to attach.

This in fact turned out to be the hardest part and gave me the most grief.

 

[The_Dreaded_Pets]

comeing along very very nicely what did you think of the expanding foam i didnt like useing it at all im makeing my 1st background aswell

 

[MC-Boks]

Initially I attached the plants with silicone, but it wouldn't adhere to the plastic. Liquid nails wouldn't stick to either the plastic or the paint. I even tried hot glue. No success. worse, I was getting globby bits of residue everywhere. The problem was the plastic plants. Most glues don't work with polyethelene. Finally I came across selleys Plastic Glue, which comes with a primer pen to condition the plastic and enable the glue to adhere to it. Finally.

 

[Norm]

When can you do mine?

 

[MC-Boks]

The expanda foam was a bit of a pain in the... I ended up using 4 cans to get the effect I wanted. I found that the Bostic version was better and easier to use (apply) than the Selleys version.
How are you enjoying the experience?

 

[MC-Boks]

Finally, this is the end result.