Ok, so today's episode is a little bit off topic.
It's about building the Kitty Rocket Tower.
Now, I love cats.
Maybe not as much as this girl.
I really love cats.
Or as much as sheldon cooper.
Cats make wonderful companions.
Now right now we have 3 cats.
This is Noid.
And yes, she is in fact named after the old Domino's Pizza Noid.
This is PigBunny.
And this is our latest edition, Starlight.
Ok, so over the years we've had lots of cat trees.
And what can I say besides, "They just don't make them like they used to."
Your typical cat tree these days is made from cardboard tubes.
And the primary design goal seems to be to make them light and easy to ship in a box,
to be assembled by the customer.
But they aren't sturdy.
And this one here isn't too bad compared to previous ones we've had but it's still not
a great design.
I've often found that things like this and this - they're just a total waste.
Cats just do not play with these toys more than a day or two and they lose interest.
So what are some important features of a cat tree?
Well, for one thing they need something to scratch on.
Cats have a natural need to scratch.
A lot of people think it is to sharpen their claws.
But that isn't exactly true.
Cats actually shed their claws and a new, sharper claw grows out from underneath.
So if you ever see little claw shells like this laying around your cat's favorite scratching
area, you'll know why.
Now, cats typically like to scratch on tall vertical things like trees, for example.
These cheap scratching posts you see at the store like this are pretty useless.
They're more likely to tip over than anything else.
The other main thing your cat wants is some place high off the ground to lounge and nap.
And if you have more than one cat then you need space for them all.
So, I set out to design the perfect cat tower.
Ok, so I had several design goals from the very beginning.
One of the issues I had is this little dog here.
His name is Midnight but I typically call him Bark-Rat.
Whenever he sees a new cat tree, this is how it appears in his mind.
In fact, do you remember that imac cathouse i made a while back?
Well, he continually peed on the bottom of the scratching post until it was ruined.
You can already see on the base of this tree that it's been peed on.
And if you take a look with a black light you can see even more pee.
So I wanted to make sure that the new one was pee proof.
And not just pee proof, but vomit proof.
Yes, if you have a cat you know they are prone to spontaneous barfing wherever they happen
to be at the time.
We also have a special table in the house that the cats eat on, otherwise the dog will
eat all of their food.
I wondered if I could incorporate a special cat dining level on this thing.
So this is what I came up with in sketchup.
I made sure the base was elevated off the ground and the only thing the dog could pee
on would be these legs.
I won't start the scratching rope until this area.
And I'll paint the bottom of the legs so that they will be pee proof.
OK, so I set out to build this thing, so stick around to the end so you can see what the
cats think about it.
So I went over to the GeekPub's shop to cut the wood.
We did have a preliminary test of assembly.
After it was cut, I took it home for final assembly.
The cats were already trying to play on it while I was working on it.
The paint guy at Lowe's told me to use this oil based paint for the legs so it should
repel liquid, including dog pee.
But I'm painting the floors of each level too, because cats have a tendency to puke
on things and MDF is really bad about swelling when liquid touches it.
And now it's time for some rope.
Now it's time for some side-panels.
At the last minute I decided not to glue on these panels and instead use these brackets.
That way I can take the sides off for maintenance or cleaning.
I wanted to use carpet for the horizontal areas.
But, my wife wanted to make custom padding so that it could be taken off and put in the
washing machine.
And so, we'll take a wait and see approach on the padding.
If it doesn't work out, I'll replace it later with carpet.
So, that's one design goal I had from the very beginning, is that I wanted to be able
to replace the rope and the padding at least once a year as needed.
I think most of the cat trees that get thrown out these days are actually thrown out not
due to structural damage, but just due to the destruction of the coverings.
For the dining level, I decided to put some sticky tiles down since there is likely to
be lots of cat food spills around this area.
So I should mention that I had several different designs before I settled on this one.
This is one design I thought about.
You'll notice I had these holes where a cat might be able to jump from one level to the
next.
But I realized eventually that my cats would probably never use these and so it was just
wasting floor space.
Most of the time my cats will take the most direct route up the tree, which means climbing
up the post.
So, it was time to bring it out and let the cats see it for the first time all finished.
They were naturally curious about it and it seems that all three of them were mostly interested
in the big room on the bottom.
And there's no wonder why.
You can see how roomy and luxurious it is inside.
But there's room for all three cats to have their own little room.
And the scratching posts on top were irresistible to all three cats.
It appears they are quite happy with it!
And look, even the dog gets his own spot.
Alright, so I also have to mention that I only spent about $30 on lumber to build this
thing and about another $70 on other materials.
In fact, I think I spent more on rope than any other material in this build.
If you are interested in picking up the original sketchup plans or some two dimensional plans,
those should be available over at the GeekPub.
There will be a link down in the description for that.
Alright, so that about wraps it up for the cat tower.
I've also been working on a really cool review for the Incredible Musical Keyboard for the
Commodore 64.
That's going to be coming up real soon, but it's going to be on my other channel, 8-Bit
Keys.
I'd like to mention that I recently guest starred on another channel, the Obsolete Geek
did an episode about the first game console that had interchangeable cartridges.
And he invited me to be a part of it.
It's a really great video and I invite you to check it out.
And there's a link in the description field.