I'm drawing up some plans for an aviary for my two cockatiels. Right now they are in one of those cheap little cages. They will be upgrading to my girlfriend's Parrot cage when she starts college up here. So, we'll have three cockatiels living in a parrot cage. It will definitely be large enough, however it won't look all that great in my house.
So, I want to draw up some plans for a medium oak & glass aviary that my grandpa and I could build over a weekend. Attached is the basic shape I want. I'd like to build cabinets underneath, and I want glass on the front and back. The sides can be that high-quality PVC-coated mesh, so the birds can climb around. I'm not sure what to do about a door on this thing, though. If I went glass all around, I would be able to build a glass door in one of the sides.
Anyway, here's the shape (from above):
The whole shebang should be six feet high (Four feet of glass / bird area, two feet of cabinet space underneath).
He has all of the tools we'll need, so we won't have any problems there at all. I wouldn't say my grandpa half-assses things, but if I don't have it planned to every last detail, it won't get done right
Anyone have tips for things like getting the glass set in the wood framing correctly? In what order should we build the pieces? I'm thinking it would be easier to build some sort of frame for the inner part of the bird cage, then build the base, and then join the two using the real nice trim wood.
And, how about my angled sides... How should the glass attach to the wood trim? Birds will chew on wood if they can, so I need some way to have the wood there, but hide it or make it inaccessable to them in some way.