Questions about shelves.

[fluffycupcake]

I'm kind of curious as to what type of wood is best used for shelves for your chinnies? Or at least what is most popular. And, what thickness of wood do you all have for your shelves?



Also, I want to color my shelves once I've gotten them made, everyone says to use either food coloring or kool-aid. Which is better? And is there a certain brand/flavor that would work better/be more safe?

 

[Essentia]

I use KD pine with a thickness of one inch for shelves. As for coloring, I find the Wilton food coloring works the best for dying wood. I find my colors in the Walmart craft section where they have wedding items.

 

[Shooper]

I to use KD Pine for my shelves and Dogwood for some of my ledges.
I think 1 in. is about average for thickness!

 

[ChinnyMom]

my shelves are 1 inch thick and kd pine too. i get my boards from the moulding section of home depot - nice clean wide boards.

Rhino's cage has one manzanita bird perch in it as well. it came with hardware in only one end. boy was it a bugger to get a hanger bolt in the other end to put it in a cage corner...... lol.

 

[greychins]

Same here - KD pine and 1" thickness. I get mine in the regular wood (I think it's called "common boards") section of Home Depot. A bit cheaper if you are doing a ton of ledges, and I prefer the 8" wide ones.

I have never colored my shelves, so I can't help you there. I would think food coloring would work best, as it's intended to dye things, whereas kool-aid just happens to dye things because it stains, lol.

 

[Chinchilla City]

I use vitacritter colorant for all my toy parts and I use to color shelves with it too. For the shelves, I just painted it on. I use 1" x 8" pine for ledges which really translates to 3/4" x 7.25" if I made full shelves for my cage instead of just ledges, I'd probably see if I could make them thicker or use a harder wood like poplar. Hardwoods seem to dye better than pine, they come out more vibrant.

 

[fluffycupcake]

:thumbsup:

Thank you guys for the input!


If anyone else wants to toss in what you use, please feel free.


Also, can anyone give me some tips about dying the wood?
Another user told me to bake the wood after dying it to make sure it is dry.
What temperature is a good temperature to do that? And for how long?

 

[Chinchilla City]

When I painted the dye on, I just let it air dry. If you are going to dunk/soak it in dye then I'd put it in the oven at 200 or 250 for a couple hours each side.

Also I've use koolaid to dye pumice rocks or loofah and I don't think it'd work too good for shelves if you want the color to show.