Have just moved to Florida (the Villages) from a New York City apartment and intend to finally build my " keep busy, youre bugging me layout", when I’m not playing golf and various other activities.
TV is boring here and model railroading is certainly more fun.
My layout will be housed in our garage which is NOT air conditioned.
It will be constructed on a base of half inch plywood with a half inch of homasote on top.
Finally found a source for homasote here, but now question how well it will hold up in a high humidity, high temperature enviorment. Temps my neighbors tell me can exceed 120 degrees and humidity can climb to 90 percent or more, for extended periods of time.
I will probably also not be around for three to four months during the height of the summer season, and therefore the opportunity to “air” the garage out will not be possible.
No, I will not a/c the garage.
Is there any one out there who can give advice as to what would be appropriate, if homasote is a poor choice. My alternative is to lay tack on the half inch plywood and this could work well as the layout is to be an industrail one.
I understand your concerns. what i would do, being an upstate NYer is forget the homosote and go with 1"or 2" foam. not only will you not have an issue with warpage that homosote can give you in high humidity but also if it gets soaked you can get black mold when it dries out. the upside of foam is that you can carve rivullets and cuts into it without loosing structural integrity. welcome to the forum and the community.
I moved a plywood/Homasote layout I had built in Coos Bay, Oregon to Pensacola and then to Hollywood, FL. The Hollywood house was not air conditioned; we had 2 window units that were used in the worst 2 weeks in August. The jalousy windows were worthless for sealing the house, but were great for letting any breeze at all flow through.
The layout, which had handlaid track on the Homasote on 1/2" plywood (cookie cuttered), did not have any problems. And since the humidity is pretty high year-round, I doubt you will see any problems, either. It is the large swings in the humidity that causes problems.
I am a little more concerned about the 1/2" plywood than I am the Homasote. Homasote is the same stuff it was forty years ago; 1/2" plywood is not. If you are going to be sawing the plywood for cookie cutter or into ribbon roadbed, make sure you get 5 ply AB grade or better. Lesser grades have too many large voids which will be exposed when sawing. And the 3-4 plies of the cheap 1/2" are much more likely to warp and/or sag over time. Don’t be afraid to go to 3/4" plywood instead of 1/2" due to quality issues seen in today’s plywood.
In either case, I like to leave a business card thickness gap where straight sections of track join. This covers me for any expansion/contraction of the benchwork. If using Atlas flex track, soldering rail joints on curves is the only sure-fire way I have seen to avoid kinks forming from the spring in the rail. Other makes of flex track hold the curve better, and don’t necessarily need to be soldered.
I agree with Fred W about the humiditry affecting the wood more than Homasote!
I have my layout done in OSB and Homasote with dimensional lumber for the framework. The basement where it is located is not heated so it can range in temperature 30 degrees from the coldest to the warmest.
I try to keep the Humidity as constant as I can.
I have had some Homasote shear the glue loose from the OSB sub-base due to humidity swings when I have my dehumidifier fail.
The HOMASOTE is very STABLE!
Anyone stating different is just hearing these urban legends - I have been using Homasote for the past 40 years and I have some of the really old stuff embedded in my current layout right alongside the new stuff - NO DIFFERENCE!
It is the WOOD framwork that is causing all of these problems!
If the Homasote was causing problems then my swing bridge that I have across my entrance to the basement would stop working if the Homasote swelled up as the bridge frame is made of STEEL! Yet it works smooth year round!
NOW!
Using the Foam will eliminate ALL problems with Humidity and temperature swings as that stuff just won’t change!
And if you want to eliminate all expansion or contraction due to humidity then use steel studs for the benchwork!
While any salt air may have an effect on the steel it certainly won’t be affected by the Humidity!
I am the Homasote Representative for Florida. I moved here from SE Mass 15 + years back and live here year round and fully understand the weather here (Naples).
You have no reason to be concerned about the performance of the Homasote Board (commonly called 440). There are any number of layouys in the State and many of them are not in A/C space and the board performs just fine.
I am glad you were able to find the board. I had a call a few weeks back from a fellow in your area and arranged for him to pick the board up at my local distributor - he was doing it for a friend - I am wondering if that fiend might have you.
Please if you have any questions please feel free to get in touch.