As anybody tried ceiling tile (turned over not the white side) as sub road bed material? My neighboe, a contractor, said it is the same as “homosote” as far as density. I have 20 2x4 pieces and it looks to hold a spike very well.
Thank folks.
sounds like it could work . put down a piece of track , stick in some spikes and let us know
Ceiling tile is NOT as dense as Homasote. Homasote’s density is 1.2 pounds/sq.ft. Ceiling tile is made to absorb sound, and therefore is less dense due to the air pockets in the materiel. It will hold screws & nails but in my experience( i used them on a portable layout) you MUST coat the screw/nail with glue- elmers or gorilla works best. What I finally did was glue the foam roadbed down, then used the nails to hold the track down so I could glue it down with diluted elmers[50% to 75% glue/water]. once the glue dried, took the nails out.
I won’t be using the tiles again- even though a 4x8 sheet of Homasote costs 28$(plus 75 cents per cut), I will use it-- it’s simply been the best product to use for roadbed/underlayment/subroadbed for uncounted years–
Your contractor friend may not know what Homosote is, because ceiling tile is far from being as dense. Ceiling tile is easily broken or chipped away and will not support any weight without sagging, cracking, or shattering. Homosote is pressed recycled paper and is very dense. So dense, in fact, that some people drill pilot holes for track nails.
Thanks, was just a question. I will use it on the CEILING with the backside down. Other side it real nasty looking.
Thank Again
Darn! I was hoping you guys would agree that it was worth a trial. If it is that good with sound reduction, it would make for some quiet rails.
To make matters worse, ceiling tile absorbs moisture like crazy, it is far too soft to be used for that purpose.
After a test of 1 pie:
- Cuts easy
- Takes glue very well to hold cork
- holds BRAIDED nails well
- Spikes pull out
- FORGET and scenery as soon as you mist the glue is gets mushy
- After #5 it hardens back very well.
- Needs supports every foot to take any weight at all
- Worked well over 1/2" OSB
- Could not run a train but I used sectional track and rolled a couple of acr and was quiter than the foam test and A LOT quiter than the plywood cork test.
The conclusion is that I will try it in a min scene (24"x36") on the brabch line when I build. I would NOT recommend it unless you have the same conditions that I have 72deg 45% 365 days a year in the train room.
I will put this test piece in our non climate controlled shed and see what it look like in a few days.
Thanks for being a laboratory for us, claycts. Too bad you couldn’t use a decibel meter to do a firm comparison. I can tell you that my EZ-Track ,lightly ballasted, and placed directly (but not fastened) on 1" foam is not especially quiet.
YUCK!
We had a shower last night and the non-climate controlled shed went to 100% humidty and the un-painted tile was mush, the sealed and painted was better but still not as good to hold a bradded nail like it was dry. Looks like humidty, gee what a shock, is the root of all layout evil.
Take Care
So…how does that effect those who have touted using ceilng tiles to make striated (layered) rock formations on their layout?
Tom
Everyone I know paints their ceiling tiles before applying water-based scenery. The paint acts as a barrier to moisture and helps prevent swelling. I don’t know if my friends paint the hidden sides of tiles. That would allow moisure to get in from behind the scenery. I’ll have to ask sometime.
But the tiles look great when fully sceniced!
Darrell, quiet…for now
I will be using Thompsons water seal on BOTH sides if I use this stuff. we used laytex paint on the test pieces. My contractor neighbor said to use oil based primer that it will seal better.
Agreed about the oil-based. Latex and acrylic are water-based, and are permeable.
I never had any problems with my ceiling tile rockfaces coming into contact with moisture/waterbased paint or glue. I never sealed them and I did soak them thouroughly with water thinned acrylics to colour them initially before redoing with kilz(latex) primer and repainting, I also used copius amounts of very thin elmers white glue to attach scenery to the rock face, and when ballasting the track as seen in my sigpic I doused the area with water thinned glue thoroughly.
After all this moisture came in contact with the ceiling tiles I have noticed NO degredation, warping or other unwanted illeffects, maybe I’m just lucky.
Have fun & be safe,
Karl.
And I am using the same product, on my double decker with no ill effects so far.
I used Kilz to seal the exposed surface as well for I found it wouldnt accept Contact cement for the roadbed with out it.
And nooo problems so far 
selector is right. I forgot to mention non-water based paints for the initial painting.
The original Kilz primer is solvent-based, so it will seal very well. Kilz 2 is water-based and may cause the problem you are trying to avoid.
Darrell, correctedly quiet…for now
OK, any pictures oof this stuff being used for scenery? Is it in books? I got a ton of this stuff so if you can tell me how to use it as scenery my depleting budget will be very happy.
Take Care
George P.
Here are a couple of threads you may find interesting George, be sure to check out the links within the threads for added info. I dont have all my links available right now but these should give you some idea of the possibilities
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=1&TOPIC_ID=42875
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=1&TOPIC_ID=41557
http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/rockfaces/
http://www.chattanoogadepot.com/stratified-rock.html
Hope this helps,
Karl
Thank you Karl, I saved all to favorites so I can refer to them. Using this I think I can do the Grand Canyon, went from 20 pieces to 560 pieces, neigbor thought I wanted ALL he took out.