if you leave them in you’ll have to seal them but they probably add some structural integrity as well as being built in ledges you can add on to. i’d probably leave them and dryloc them if it were me
Dangerous-Road-5382
I think the center braces would be very hard to work around when building the background later on. Plus, even if you do get them obscured by moss/plants they’ll still be three horizontal bars, making a tangent that could look pretty bad. You could possibly keep one of them, maybe towards the bottom, and disguise it as a root with dryloc/cement/epoxy?
The shelf ledges shouldn’t make a big difference since they’ll be obscured by foam, they’d actually be good to have since it gives spray foam a better anchor (it doesn’t adhere to glass permanently).
I have a retrofitted display case viv as well, and I can highly recommend liquid rubber! I used Flexseal just because it was available, but there are others that are half the cost and the same basic product. Just make absolutely sure to mask it off well, and give it a good margin around the edges (1/3″-1/2″) to make sure no water gets in. Sand the wood beforehand with a high grit sandpaper (too low and you can see the scratches) and clean the surrounding inch of glass with alcohol.
I look forward to seeing this viv as it evolves! It has a lot of potential.
2 Comments
if you leave them in you’ll have to seal them but they probably add some structural integrity as well as being built in ledges you can add on to. i’d probably leave them and dryloc them if it were me
I think the center braces would be very hard to work around when building the background later on. Plus, even if you do get them obscured by moss/plants they’ll still be three horizontal bars, making a tangent that could look pretty bad. You could possibly keep one of them, maybe towards the bottom, and disguise it as a root with dryloc/cement/epoxy?
The shelf ledges shouldn’t make a big difference since they’ll be obscured by foam, they’d actually be good to have since it gives spray foam a better anchor (it doesn’t adhere to glass permanently).
I have a retrofitted display case viv as well, and I can highly recommend liquid rubber! I used Flexseal just because it was available, but there are others that are half the cost and the same basic product. Just make absolutely sure to mask it off well, and give it a good margin around the edges (1/3″-1/2″) to make sure no water gets in. Sand the wood beforehand with a high grit sandpaper (too low and you can see the scratches) and clean the surrounding inch of glass with alcohol.
I look forward to seeing this viv as it evolves! It has a lot of potential.