Keeping rodents was a big hobby for me for twenty years, I have had rats, mice, gerbils and 3 types of hamsters. I have made many cages for them over the years.
Wood doesn't work too well with rodents, not because they chew through it, but because it is difficult to clean and it will start to stink after a while because wood soakes up moisture.
First rat cage I made was out of a couple of old wooden kitchen cabinets, and it was a nice cage with levels and pipes and its own air conditioning, the rats loved it, but cleaning it was a PITA so I retired it after a while.
I then started to use old aquariums and plexiglass and that works a lot better. Easy to clean and you can easily find your little buddies.
I never had any of the pets chew through any of their cages, except the Gerbils. Those critters are bloody monsters! Had a nice store bought plastic cage for them and they chewed right through it. I found out when I entered the room and one of them attacked my big toe. Yeah, let's pick a fight with this Godzilla monster that's 500 times bigger than me, it thought. I also had this aluminium food tray for them and along with the food they ate the tray too!
In the end I ditched all my self made cages and went with the store bought solutions. There are many nice choices and it is so much easier to clean them because they're plastic. If you have to clean a cage two times a week, you'll eventually reach the conclusion "cleanability" is their most important feature.
