Dog Pen

jimnjulia · 30 Dec 2009, 00:03

Hello, all. Here's a Dog Pen that I designed and built for our 3yr old black lab. We wanted to build it on the cheap, so all the framing is done with 1x3 spruce strapping and the mesh is 1/2" Hardware cloth. Basically, all I did was built a series of 12 frames all the same dimensions. Then I sandwiched a sheet of hardware cloth between 2 frames and screwed them together. A couple larger frames were built for the top and a deck was built for the bottom. Then, I screwed them all together and threw hinges on one of the panels for a door. Put a crib mattress in the pen and now we have a happy dog.
Here's a render of the pen...

Btw, he's a really tall lab, so I built it tall enough that he can sit up in the pen without rubbing his head on the top panel.

If anyone's interested, I can share the .skp file. If there's a better way to do that, please let me know.

Mike Lucey · 30 Dec 2009, 00:13

That's a very simple yet clever design Jim. Yes please, I'd like to see the .skp file.

Mike

jimnjulia · 30 Dec 2009, 00:47

OK, figured it out. Here's the file...

Dog Pen.skp

Mike Lucey · 30 Dec 2009, 01:35

Thanks Jim

mics_54 · 30 Dec 2009, 04:44

Why didn't you lap the joints? Wow the file size is rather ..rotund.

Dave R · 30 Dec 2009, 12:49

I agree with mic_54. I'd have lapped the joints on the frames. Nice otherwise. As to file size, nearly all of it comes from the materials. I removed them and it is only about 41Kb. Not bad at all.

If you're interested, I would suggest (Google does too if you read the help files) that you leave Layer 0 associated with edge and face entities. Only associate other layers with component definitions. Makes it much easier when you edit and reduce the chances of getting things confused.

Glad the dog likes it. That's the most important part.

jimnjulia · 30 Dec 2009, 21:50

Yeah, I kept the joints simple. This was kind of a test project so I could try out a new pocket hole jig that my store started selling (I work at a hardware store). Plus, I knew I was going to have a very limited time to chop all the lumber for the product. So I tried to keep the amount of different lengths to a minimum. Btw, the pocket hole jig worked out great. They don't look like much, but those joints are actually pretty strong.