My wife, sister, and I are sharing a 3 bedroom apartment right now and my sister recently got a cat, as did my wife and I. So to occupy our new fine friends we wanted to build something along the lines of this:
Idea found from this etsy page
We sketched out the design we wanted for our apartment to fit over our TV and mapped out the holes for the cats to climb through, our paper drawing looked like this...
I then used Fusion 360 to draw the first hexagon (using the polygon shape tool I think) and then the offset tool to set it for the 1/2" plywood sheet we planned on using. Then I copied that shape to each area we planned and verified the sketch by overlaying the paper as a "stupid check"
Then we extruded the hexagon sketch in Fusion 360 to the 9" depth we wanted - doing each side one at a time and being sure to "make a new body" instead of joining them so that we could later just click each line and get an accurate measurement to cut from.
We then drew out a 4'x8' sheet of plywood as a rectangle and copied the sketch over top so we could plan out the cuts, both for the backboard and for the individual rectangles that would make up each side.
We used this drawing to then go to our local hardware store and get the plywood, making note of some larger portions of plywood that could be cut down in the store to fit inside out little car.
Our final 3d design looked like this:
You've likely noticed the odd shaped part to the right in the 3d drawing above, that is a jig that I made so that after cutting each rectangle with a hole in it, I could easily use a trim router to cut accurate and identical holes.
We could now continue assembling the rectangles as planned. For this part we also used another set of 3d printed jigs to help us keep all of the angles accurate and also hold parts up without falling over while they were glued and brad nailed.
Once all of the parts were glued and nailed together, we traced the admittedly slight crooked ensemble over the remaining of the ply wood sheet. This step was completed with a jig saw because of the corners. The backplane is so that we could have great structural integrity, as well as mounting could be as simple as a few screws into studs wherever possible - versus awkward and unsightly hooks.
We then continued to using wood filler and sanding. Following that, we painting the shelves black using a few coats of spray paint.
Around this time we remembered that we needed an extra floating shelf to help the cats to get from the floor, to the entertainment center, to the windows perch, to this new shelf, to the cat hexagons. We used glue and brad nails here also.
Lastly, we added black felt to where the cats would be interacting with the wood so they could be more soft as well as have added grip for their claws when traversing the structure.
Our project could now be mounted on the wall and was complete! Enjoy the kittens in their new play structure!
Our project could now be mounted on the wall and was complete! Enjoy the kittens in their new play structure!
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