DIY

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I love DIY, especially when its hamster related. I'm hooked on making bin cages and donate them to rescues. My favourite item in the kitchen is a Dremel tool. It does not belong into a shed but i do use it outside of course.

I'm always on the lookout for big plastic boxed. My best haul was four large Samlas for twelve quid bought locally from a couple that had moved house.

They thought i was moving too and i replied that i'm making hamster homes. That needed a bit of further explaining.

I saw a nearly new Dremel advertised locally. I want it but i don't need it.
Does a woman in her 60's need two Dremels?
I have more than two handbags.......
 
Of course you need two dremels! One might be better and then if one breaks you've still got one. I only have one handbag and haven't used it since the pandemic! It was too much hassle when you had to clean and wipe everything. It was more of "bag" than a handbag anyway. I don't miss it! I just take less with me and put things in my pockets.

Which means - I have more hamster cages than handbags 🤣. actually that's not quite true - I do possess a couple of smaller over the shoulder purse type things but haven't used them for years.
 
One Dremel is simply not enough lol.

My DIY skills are quite poor. It's not that I don't try, it's just that my body struggles with tasks 😅

I made a cardboard multi-chamber hide for Ares and I attached dowels on the bottom so it'd stand better on the substrate and wouldn't need to worry about him digging under a corner and have it tilt and have everything on top fall off. Do you want to know how many attempts it took me to get the legs on it? TOO MANY. They're still not right and longer than intended but I can't be bothered to attempt it again. I also attempted to add legs to his sand bath with the intention of having his wheel on top. The legs are too long and the wheel won't fit. A couple of months later I'm still to fix it and instead have his wheel suspended from a bendy bridge.

I can sew though. I've made some cozies for the guinea pigs which they absolutely adore. I do need to make some more but I need somewhere to store them.
 
I made cozies for guinea pigs and donated them to a rescue.
I bought a cheap dog blanket that had this teddy type fabric on one side, cut it up and sewed it into piggy beds.

I've never attempted to make stilts for houses but they would probably collapse.

I looked at the Dremel but it wasn't the model i'm used to so gave it a miss.
 
I'm not sure how you'd attach stilts to a cardboard house but if I can add stilts to a house then anyone can ha ha.

I used these dowels


And ponal wood glue (which is virtually odourless, safe for hamsters and sticks wood incredibly well - it's strong - german hamster owners use it). I ,like it so much I use it for all sorts now! I don't like smelly noxious things!

Ponal 44272 Wood Glue Classic 550g, White : Amazon.co.uk: DIY & Tools

Shop Ponal 44272 Wood Glue Classic 550g, White. Free delivery on eligible orders of £20 or more.
www.amazon.co.uk

And I simply decided how long I wanted the legs. Those dowels are 30cm long so I worked out how high I wanted the house to sit, plus the height of the house (because I glued them to the outside of the house for stability). I think it was 20cm. So then just measured 20cm and put a pencil mark and sawed them off with this little saw I bought! It's not much more than a kitchen knife! So only suitable for very small dowels like this.


You may have seen it before, but below is an example of how they were then attached to the house. The ponal is rock solid and the height of the house means the legs stay on firm. A tricky bit was allowing the legs to stay in place while the glue dried (overnight so I did two at atime (ie one side at a time). So for the front legs the house was left with the front side upside overnight and a heavy book on top of the glued on legs so they didn't fall off before the glue had set.

P4171198 resized 600.jpgP4171200 resized 600.jpg
 
And no way would they fall off! However our hamster chewed through one of the dowels underneath the substrate. That was ok because the other legs held it up in place and he didn't chew completely through. I just pulled that one off and replaced it. It's actually quite hard to pull them off!
 
Maz said:
I'm not sure how you'd attach stilts to a cardboard house but if I can add stilts to a house then anyone can ha ha.

I used these dowels


And ponal wood glue (which is virtually odourless, safe for hamsters and sticks wood incredibly well - it's strong - german hamster owners use it). I ,like it so much I use it for all sorts now! I don't like smelly noxious things!

Ponal 44272 Wood Glue Classic 550g, White : Amazon.co.uk: DIY & Tools

Shop Ponal 44272 Wood Glue Classic 550g, White. Free delivery on eligible orders of £20 or more.
www.amazon.co.uk

And I simply decided how long I wanted the legs. Those dowels are 30cm long so I worked out how high I wanted the house to sit, plus the height of the house (because I glued them to the outside of the house for stability). I think it was 20cm. So then just measured 20cm and put a pencil mark and sawed them off with this little saw I bought! It's not much more than a kitchen knife! So only suitable for very small dowels like this.


You may have seen it before, but below is an example of how they were then attached to the house. The ponal is rock solid and the height of the house means the legs stay on firm. A tricky bit was allowing the legs to stay in place while the glue dried (overnight so I did two at atime (ie one side at a time). So for the front legs the house was left with the front side upside overnight and a heavy book on top of the glued on legs so they didn't fall off before the glue had set.

View attachment 328View attachment 329
Click to expand...
I used a minimal amount of glue from a glue gun. Just enough to hold it in place but not too much that it comes out the side. The only way a hamster could get to it is of they chewed it. Ares isn't a massive chewers and there's no marks anywhere so I'm sure it's ok. If I had a chewer I'd use a water based glue.

I just couldn't get the length right which annoyed me more than anything. In the future I'm going to make a wooden version and maybe a couple of other wooden hides which would be suitable for all species of hamster and would be more robust. (So I'm going to look into getting that glue).

Could you have used masking tape to hold the legs in place while they dried?
 
Yes I've done that before too (used masking tape). Book seemed to do it ok though! Although that maybe wouldn't work on a cardboard house. Actually - does a cardboard house need legs? It would be quite light.
 
Maz said:
Yes I've done that before too (used masking tape). Book seemed to do it ok though! Although that maybe wouldn't work on a cardboard house. Actually - does a cardboard house need legs? It would be quite light.
Click to expand...
If it was just a house with nothing on top of it, no, however Ares has a water dish and ceramic hide on his. He also likes to dig in the one corner and if it wasn't on legs it'd tip.
 
Ah good point! I didn't think of that :)
 
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