Using Flooring Tile on Plywood...?

[Grampy]

Strange question I know, but I have a small yard area....24" by 72"....that seems way too small for me to have to go and buy a 4'x8' piece of Homasote (there is a commercial dealer here in Georgia that carries it by the sheet), so I'm thinking of using some left over vinyl flooring tile and putting it over my 1/2" plywood base. It's the Allure brand, 1/8" thick vinyl stuff...very sturdy. Any thoughts or other suggestions.....?

 

[Beachbum]

Any reason why you don't want to use cork sheet? How resilient / squishy is the floor tile?

 

[Grampy]

The floor tile is not resilient at all...it's a hard material.....which is what I thought most people like to use in yard areas, like homasote, etc.

I know that I will not be using any roadbed in this yard area.....I've seen posts in other forums that say yards are usually pretty flat, with little to no raised ballast, etc.......guess I could try the cork for this area. Thanks....

 

[402drvr]

Could you drive a track spike into the tile? Or are you gluing the track?

Nice thing about homasote, cork, or foam, is that you can dig into it to add depth or undulation to the area.

 

[RW&C]

The other nice thing about cork is sound deadening. A train running on solid tracks, on top of solid vinyl, on top of solid plywood transfers all its noise to the benchwork, amplifying any growling in the mechanism. Running on cork, however, gives the sound a bit of resilient material to diffuse in.

 

[Grampy]

Thank you all.....I've made my decision, and cork it is.....!