Cage modification advice needed

[tielfan]

Today I won a cockatiel and cage at the local bird club's monthly raffle. (Don't worry, they do the raffles in a way that birds only go to people who really want to have them). The cage is nice and big but has one major design flaw: circular decorative bars on top of the functional vertical bars, which create some spots with nasty claw-catching V-shapes. I even saw my new baby get stuck once before the raffle and helped him get free.

Now that he's home I've got him in a safer but much smaller cage until his quarantine is up and he can join the other tiels in the really big cage. But I'd like to rehabilitate this cage if I can. I tried wrapping some hemp string in the bad spots to fill them up but wasn't satisfied with the tightness of the string - getting a claw caught in string instead of in wire isn't going to help anything. Can anybody recommend other alternatives? The decorative wire seems to be welded on and I don't think I can get it off. Here's a picture of the decorations and the cage as a whole:

[Tashk]

How about using wire clippers and cut the designs off, and sand the remaining edges down?

[tielfan]

I'm not sure I have the strength to do that, and if I could there would probably be some exposed unpainted metal of unknown safety. I think it's better to cover the designs up somehow.

[Grillis]

what are you going to use the cage for? I'm trying to come up with something to do with the rounden area... but I can't come up with anything...

[tielfan]

I'm going to cover up the circular designs by attaching small plastic plates on top of them using small, bird-safe nylon screws that I got at Home Depot. A bigger bird would have it for lunch, but it'll work fine for tiels.