New to Bearded Dragons

[rob.kolm]

I am not yet a owner but am looking to get a bearded dragon. I was thinking of refinishing and converting a old wood buffet into an enclosure it is 48 inches long but only 20 inches deep. Will it be deep enough. Here is what I am looking to buy to convert.

 

[jarich]

Hi Rob and welcome to the forum!

As for the dresser, thats quite a nice piece of furniture. And yes, its a good size too. The height is great and your dragon will make full use of it. Looks like its a good solid piece and shouldnt be too hard to adapt. I would guess you could just replace the large middle doors with sliding glass and take the back end off the three drawers, while still using the front panels. Always nice to have a beautiful outside of the enclosure too!

 

[rob.kolm]

Thanks jarich I bought the dresser today and it's now my winter project.

 

[rob.kolm]

So here is what I am thinking and I would love opinions. The bottom drawer below the floor will stay for storage. The center divider in the middle section will be removed and sliding doors put in across the enclosure. In the top section I will gut the drawer support while retaining the drawer faces as a false drawer. Lighting will be mounted from the dresser top and largely obscured from the outside by the false front drawer. From the exiting floor to the dresser top is 20 inches.

Thoughts?

 

[jarich]

Totally your call, of course, but Id recommend taking out the bottom drawer as well as the top ones. With only 20 inches of height youre going to limit yourself on what you can do with lighting as well as your dragons ability to climb, which is something they love to do. Id always recommend everyone going higher with their dragon enclosures if possible.

 

[rob.kolm]

Thanks again jarich that would be easy to do and give me another 8 inches vertical to work with.

 

[rob.kolm]

And it begins. Gutted it and am starting the stripping today. More pictures to come as I progress.

 

[Tyler_Vance]

Keep the pictures comin!

 

[rob.kolm]

Spent a good part of a long weekend working on it. After stripping I decided to do a dark stain so I am not going to bleach the wood and will just re-stain. I needed to add some support to bottom to be able to handle the floor with tile. Floor is 1/2 plywood and walls and back are 1/4 inch glued and nailed on with the help of a trim air nailer (back isn't actually attached yet as I need to cut venting. Going to do a light stain on the inside with spar varnish to handle the UV. Once I get my hardware in I will be doing some trim up front. I also need to mount the false drawers on the front. Electrical will run through the top where I will be building a 2x1x4inch box with a hinged top to access. I have some probe thermostats on order that will be inset on the front of the box.

 

[rob.kolm]

Enclosure is moving along unfortunately I can only work on it on the weekends. Put in framing for the false doors

Put the laches on the drawers to lock them in place.

Fits in pretty well and covers gaps that feeders could get out of. You can also see the main cabinet is now stained.

Had a hard time figuring out how to hide the edge of the plywood for the bottom and sides and decided to put some oak on the router table and build a ledge that covers the plywood and makes a step up from the floor to where the door track will be.

 

[rob.kolm]

All the staining is done. After I clean the sawdust from my shop I can start doing the spar poly on it. On the top is a hinged box with all the power stuff. The openings in the box will have 2 temp and one humidity gage mounted in with cover plates.

 

[rob.kolm]

Enclosure is now sealed and electrical is done. Tomorrow I expect to have it finished up. I have some ebay decor showing up Monday. Going to run a few days of temp tests and it will be ready for my dragon. Here is a pic of the electrical.

 

[stumpylump86]

Cant wait to see this up and running!

 

[rob.kolm]

Finished up today and am running temp checks. I have some driftwood coming tomorrow and it will be ready for move in.

 

[KelliLorenz2000]

Wow! That turned out really nice! !

 

[rob.kolm]

Thanks

 

[babyb]

Do you have any recent pics of it decorated? I can't wait to start on mine now!!!

 

[rob.kolm]

Do you have any recent pics of it decorated? I can't wait to start on mine now!!!

I just finished and will be moving him in this week and will post. When you do yours please post progress pics I love learning how others do this stuff.

 

[babyb]

I sure will

 

[rob.kolm]

Temp testing is ongoing. I am running a 75 watt on the primary basking and a 50 watt on the secondary. Cool side is 80 but basking is 116 with the 75 watt. I am going to throw a dimmer on the line with the 75 and 50 watt and replace the 50 with a 75 and tune it down a bit with the dimmer. That should keep the cool side around 80 and bring down the primary basking to around 105-110.

. So close.