Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Door latches


Okay, so this one took me a while to figure out, but I finally did it with some help from a friend.  The latches I was using were just horrible, they were difficult to open and killed my fingers, I had looked up many many pictures of rabbit cages and this seemed to be the most popular type of latch.  And I couldn't find anywhere to buy them (though of course I did find a place to order them online after I had already made them - LOL)  I got a wire hanger and some wire cutters/pliers and started off by holding the wire up to the cage to figure out where it should bend, I bent the bottom first, where it would attach to the door, then worked in the loop and made sure the top of the loop was level with the top of the door so I could stick another j-clip on it so the latch wouldn't move around (I attached them with j-clips that I used to put the cages together with and squished them even tighter with pliers so the latch wouldn't shift at all).  After the loop, I bent it out and then back in slightly, so there is a 'hump' above the loop, that adds extra tension to the latch so when you hook it to the cage, it's nice and taught.  Then after the 'hump', I figured where I wanted it to latch to the wire and then created a kind of hook end on it so it would grab the wire easily and wouldn't slide off of it.  To open the cage, you press in on the top of the latch and move it slightly over with your finger and it comes undone easily but the rabbits can't pop the latch.  They have worked great.  Here's a side view of the latch so you can see where the 'hump' is for the added tension.

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