Weekend Washout.

Well I had hoped to finish off the build this weekend and then allow a couple of weeks for the fumes of the adhesives to settle. Unfortunately the stupid glazier had not cut my glass, even though he told me it would take 1-2 days to do. It's now been over a week and it's still not ready, if I was not saving over $50 I would take my business else where. I guess you really do get what you pay for..

I stopped by the grocery store and picked up some rubbing alcohol (isocol), borrowed a grout brush from work and attempted to try clean the white from the excess grout sealer off the rock wall. First of all I made a 50/50 mixture of water/alcohol as recommended in the articles I read, this had next to no effect. Next I tried just straight alcohol and it did work (sort of), it removed some of the white and it also removed the shine as well. Unfortunately the effort involved to get such little effect was outweighed by the fact I was happy to just accept the white bits. So I decided to just leave it, the cost of the isocol will not be part of the build (I used only a tiny bit and honestly it's good to have in the medicine cabinet anyway).

I bought a hygrometer off eBay last week, so I can monitor the humidity in the vivarium. It arrived rather quickly and looked good.

I was unsure exactly how they work, like whether they need to be mounted with the back of them in the vivarium or not. My thermometers have a sensor on the back and require channels to allow accurate readings, so I just assumed this was the same (if not, oh well). So I began making a mount that would allow air to get to the back of the hygrometer and also allow me to mount it inside the vivarium. I started by getting a 10mm bit of particle board from work and used a hole saw to cut out 2 circles.

I then used a smaller hole saw to cut out the center of one of the circles, making a ring. It was a little rough but that didn't matter as you will see later on.

With the other circle I marked and cut it into 2 pieces, removing a section from both halves to leave a channel down the center. Then I attached it all together with super glue.

A rear view.

Then I mounted the hygrometer in the ring using liquid nails to hold it in place, covered the face with plenty of masking tape (overlapping them as much as possible) to prevent any render getting on the face. I then made light brown mix of render and gave the whole thing a couple of coats of render.

Between each coat I got a wet rag and wiped around the edge between where the hygrometer meets the wood. This was to create a nice clean look where the outer of the hygrometer meets the render. Overlapping the masking tape was a good call as the water made it come unstuck a little and the amounts of tape used stopped any render getting in even when it did come unstuck a little.

When applying the render I just used my finger, seeing as it was a small piece using my finger made it easier. Also I got quite a nice uneven effect when I used my finger, making it look more rock like. During the coats I used a heat gun on a low setting to help speed up the drying process.

Once I had done 2 coats and was happy with the look and it had all dried I removed the masking tape and gave the face of the hygrometer a little clean as the masking tape left a little bit of sticky residue on it.

You can see it still has the channel, I made sure not to block this off with render.

Then I mounted it to the rock wall using liquid nails, propped a few pieces of wood under it to hold it in place and left it to dry. The hygrometer was a bit of an after thought, so I had not left a ideal spot to place it when designing the rock wall. The only (flat) spot on the rock wall where it would be visible enough was just left of the fogger rock, a bit low for my liking but it'd have to do. Without either cutting into the rock wall or creating a mount to fit in between the extrusions of the rock wall, this was the only spot left to mount it.

All of that was done Friday afternoon after work, I honestly have nothing else I can do to the build without the glass. So when I woke this morning, I had my coffee and decided to work on the planter box my partner asked for. I made it out of old pallets and some stain I had in the shed, was going for an old rustic look and I think it turned out rather well.

Hopefully I'll get my glass before next weekend so I can have a better update.

Oh and I bought a ceramic heat globe off eBay today, I read more on the better types of globes for the thermostat I am using and they say the incandescent infrared globe I have will probably only last a few weeks. So I figured I better order one now so I have back up, bought it from Hong Kong so it'll probably take a few weeks to arrive, but hey, it was cheap heh!