How I Made My Cliffs

Well lets start by saying that I did these a little different from the ones everyone seems to like in pictures that I've posted of my LGs cliff homes.

This time I started with a container for a moist hide/egg laying box.





I sprayed a loose circle around the container, let it set up a bit then sprayed another one on top of that, kind of stepping them in and up the container. Don't use plastic wrap/bags under the container. Great Stuff foam doesn't seem to set up as well on it. I peeled plastic off two days later and inside was still sloppy, I slide a piece of glass under the container, and started to cut the top, which was dry. The bottom center(which ended up under the container) is still setting up.



A kind of nice thing did happen because of the plastic to glass switch over. There was almost a natural cave when I cut into the bottom to make a ledge type hide which will lead into the moist hide.







Just to give you a comparison and idea of size of this.



When cutting the stone effect I'm just refining the "steps" some what. I shave/peel the shiny skin off areas that I want to keep that kind of rounded look. I cut some deep grooves like what would happen if water ran over the area, I do this in a couple areas, usually where I had funny shapes in foam... areas that don't work as other rock formations. I didn't put any real stone ledges in this one just because its small in size compared to the other ones. It is going to have a real stone/tile top.(norton box just to give you an idea of what I mean)



This is removable, so is the lid of the container, that bit was a little tricky to do.



I outlined the top of the lid, trying not to put too much on, cut any that stuck to the base piece, and worked a low spot in the wall to allow entry to the well.



I'm not sure if this is going to be the final shape for this but we'll see how I like it in another few days.

If this ends up being my final choice of shape then, once the bottom spot hardens I'll take it off the glass, then grout it and voila finished. I've condensed the amount of time spent Carving on this one, as it sits probably 2 or 3 hours just carving it, I'll also spend about that long grouting it as I'm going to cover everything that's foam, the inside floor of the well will be covered with silicone and small pebbles or something similar.

Well I hope this helped explain how I did this as best as I can. I'll post some pictures as I grout it, or make any real changes, and of course the finished hide.

Nice job. Looks real good. Looking forward to the updates.
Not a fan of Norton though.

Very creative!

To the Moderator: sorry for posting this in the wrong spot.

Too much time on my hands while at my store during the summer....I have a hydroponics shop and this is the start of my slow time, and this keeps me occupied for a fair bit of time. I had posted pictures of other cliffs in another post, but it's no longer visible so here's the one I was referring to above.. first is obviously incomplete, while the other is finished, and both cliffs finished in tank (4ft x 1.5 ft x 2ft)
Most of the sand got replaced this last weekend with more stone/tile, needless to say my trio doesn't seem real happy with this change. In fact the male hasn't been in the small cave in bottom of what was the incomplete cliff since. The humidity in this tank stays around 45% in the hides that side against the glass, all three have shed with no problems, so this new hide is more for possible egg laying, or I may remove one of the cliffs. Took out the two grafted cactus, the one in the little clay pot.

Those are fantastically realistic. Nice work.

Thanks for all the nice comments. I'm glad everyone seems to like them.

Wow, I must say I am very impressed with your work. Excellent job!

Well, I finally started the grouting process yesterday, I'll post pictures later. Sorry for the delay in updating but I've had other things take precedence over this piece. I did do a couple minor changes to it, but the basic shape and size is still the same. I decided not to make the entry in the side but thru the top. I decided to change the location after using a box with it in the side and the little diggers kicking the filling out all over the place. I still don't have a nice piece of stone for the top, but I'm still looking...

Looking forward to the pic update.

so here's what I've done so far including the minor changes. I've got to cut out the extra foam sprayed into the front cave( you can kinda see a couple of bubbles) it had some really big air pockets that I needed to fill. I still need to put small rocks down to cover the inside of the top cave.