I see that Menard’s is advertising homasote @ $21.77 per 4x8 sheet (TwinCities area). It’s been years since I bought any. Is this a decent price? I’m handlaying track, cookie cutter, so no, I’m NOT considering foam except for scenery. And that’s a ways away. Thanx, Gary
I purchased 4 x 8 sheets for $25.00 ea. so it sounds like you are getting a pretty good deal.
My last layout was made with homasote and had it up for about 4 years. I really don’t remember what the cost was but it was around there maybe alittle cheaper. Anyway my point is that the homasote will expand and contract with the humidity and weather thus leaving gaps between the homasote and then the rails. My newest layout is made of blue foam sheets 2’x4’ by 2" and the cost was about half the price as a full sheet of homasote. No problems with expansion or contraction and am very happy with the outcome. Just my thought .
I don’t really use Homosote, but many that do, paint or seal the product to help stop any moisture absorbtion. You would have to have some extremely damp or humid conditions to have it swell.
I would be afraid a recycled paper product might have a tendency to sag.
Say what you will against Homasote and sell blue or pink foam all you like. The fellows whose work and railroads I admire in both print and in person all use homasote over plywood or something similar like soundboard. None of them use foam for roadbed. I just reckon they know something about what they are doing and I sure like their results.
Homasote would be on my layout if I could have figured out where to buy it. I used soundboard painted with 2 or 3 coats of latex to seal it. No regrets, but I do wish I would have persevered and found it.
Just my 2 cents never worth a penny more.
Joe Daddy
Homasote is not meant to be self supporting - it does sag but it is not used for that purpose. Something needs to go under it.
The original selling point to homasote is its excellent ability to hold spikes. When you hand lay track on wood ties the spikes extend down into the homasote and something about its composition really holds them. It is nearly impossible to drive a spike into plywood because the glues make it so hard. You can drive a spike into pine but the spikes seem to be loose.
It also has good sound deadening properties.
I do not hand lay much track these days but it also holds nails and screws well.
It does not take too much humdity difference for homasote to react, and a friend with an entirely hand laid track layout who used it did suffer some problems. Back in the early days it was advised to use shellac to seal the homasote - shellac because it has no water in it. Problem is, once you do that the ease of spiking track goes down considerably. Not many of us have shellac around the house any more.
Cutting homasote tends to create dust, even with a knife edge blade (which it will dull by the way – paper is abrasive which is why mom never wanted you to use her best sewing sissors for cutting paper). I use a blade meant for cutting metal, so it has teeth but almost no kerf or width. This minimizes but does not eliminate dust. I like to do my cutting outside if I can.
If I can’t I try to have the shop vac hose near the vicinity of the cut. SOme saws have their own vac built in.
For smaller cuts a good sharp utility knife will cut homasote with nearly no dust at all.
Also for ease of transport and to minimize cutting, I buy most of my homasote in 2’ by 4’ “handi panels” at Menards or similar big box home improvement stores – the key thing is you want the stuff to have been sto
When the subject of Homasote comes up I have made it pretty clear in the past that I am not a fan and I am not going to bore anybody with my specific objections again. But I thought I would share this tidbit with anyone who thinks they really need to use it: when we built our latest house, I asked the concrete crew what the material was that they had inserted around the edges of the foundation slab. They said “Homasote.” I asked why and they said “because when it gets moisture in it, it swells up and fill gaps.” I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
John Timm
Last time I bought homosote was about 5 years ago at a local lumber yard. The going price then was around $20.00 a sheet.
I have used homosote for around 50 years. I have had layouts in 6 different homes and all the layouts were in the basement. I use 1/2 plwood or CDX under the homosote. I use L girder construction and have support under the plywood/homoste every 12 inches.
Every basement had heat in it. When moisture was a problem, a dehumidifier was used. If you have moisture, you will have a mold problem too. Trying to build a layout in a wet enviroment is a waste of time. Moisture is not good for the benchwork or your locomotives or your power source either.
I don’t think anyone is talking about a basement that is so damp that things get moldy. Even fairly dry basements have a higher degree of humidity than the floors above ground, especially in newer homes where the moisture takes a long time to seep out of the concrete. A humidifier helps but is not always the answer. My question: why take chances using any material that may shrink or swell?
John Timm
John, I think you meant dehumidifier. And with the numbers of layout pictures I’ve seen in garages in Alabama and other places in the humidor south with the garage door open and bare stud walls, one can be pretty certain that a good number of layouts get built in less than ideal environments. Not everyone is so lucky as to have a basement, dry or wet. Then there are the atics in Houston with little or no insulation in the roof and a swamp cooler hanging in the window.
Reality is that in these less than perfect environments, one has to make adjustments in construction and materials selection to meet the requirements.
Just my 2 cents never worth another penny,
Joe Daddy
Hi!
Sounds like a terrific price to me! In fact, I’ll take 4 sheets and if you would be so kind as to deliver it (Spring Texas), that would be mighty neighborly of you!
Seriously, you won’t beat that price by much, and given most home RRs only use a few sheets any difference would be no big deal.
My opinion, homosote works best as an overlay (over plywood in my case) and of course needs to be held in a relatively dry or climate controlled room/area.
Mobilman44
Thanks for the responses.[tup] This will be my third layout using homasote and handlaid track. I have previously used it on L-girder with 1/2" ply underneath with zero problems. The basement is dry, 33 year old house with hot water heat and central air, so I anticipate no expansion/contraction problems. My shop is in the far stall of a 3-car garage, partitioned and heated, where cutting will take place with a table saw and catch table, and bandsawed for the curves, so the considerable dust will be contained. It’s currently 15 below here,[:O] so the purchase will wait for temperate (read +10) conditions. The rumors that it gets cold in Minnesota in January are true, by the way.[sigh] Gary
I keep hearing how tragedy will strike if I continue to use Homasote as my roadbed. Didn’t happen on my layout. The layout (a 4x8, later cut to 4x6 to fit in the available spare room) featured cookie cutter 1/2" plywood with Homasote glued on top - with powdered wood glue, because that’s all I could afford back then. The Homasote panel had to be cut in 4 pieces to get it home. Pieces were simply butted together on top of the plywood. The ties and ballast for the handlaid track were fastened to the Homasote with the same wood glue. No other sealing was attempted. Said layout was built in coastal Oregon, with fog in the summer and rain in the winter. No humidity control other than turning on the heat in the winter.
Layout was moved to Pensacola, Florida to a house with central air conditioning. High humidity in spring and fall, low in summer and winter due to air conditioning and heat.
Next move was to Hollywood, Florida (near Miami) with a single window air conditioner that was used 2 weeks a year in August. The rest of the time we made do with fans and natural breezes.
Final move for the layout was to West Lafayette, Indiana where it lived in the basement. Some humidity was added to the basement in the winter by stretching panty hose over the dryer hose and letting it vent in the basement. No central air in that house, either, so no humidity control in the summer.
I never had to make any adjustments of any kind to the roadbed or track after all those moves. If you read the Homasote web site (http://www.homasote.com/about.html), it speaks in great detail about the product’s weather and moisture resistance. I have also read of an unconvinced model railroader who immersed Homasote in a bucket of water for days. The Homasote did swell in this situation, but returned to it’s previous dimensions after drying for a few hours.
Count me as a believer in the product for
I bought 9 sheets a month ago in South Carolina for 27.70 ea. Sounds as if you got a good deal.
I just purchased four 4x8 sheets of 1/2" Homasote from Menard’s for $18.41 a sheet.
If you are going to ‘hand lay’ your trackage, Homasote is the best material I have seen for holding track spikes. I hav built 2 railroads using Homasote that was ‘glued & screwed’ to 1/2" or 3/4" plywood. I live in Minnesota, and there are wild temp/humidity swings through the year. I only had one problem with a ‘buckle’ on a curve(I think I did not allow enough ‘gap’ in a rail joint). Using lots of glue and screws seems to do the trick. My current layout is built using ‘Homabed’ over 1/2" plywood. It has been ‘in place’ since 1987 and I have never had a problem(20’ by 25’ layout). I really like using ‘Homabed’ for several reasons:
- It is sanded to 1/4" thick and is consistant. Sheet stock Homasote is usually about 5/8" thick and is not consistant. Sheet blue/pink styrofoam is not consistant either(it is extruded, and many times the edges are thicker than the middle).
- There is little mess. Cutting Homasote really can make a mess very fast! Your ‘shop vac’ will be busy!
- ‘Homabed’ can be sanded down with a power sander or a surform tool to match the 3/16" cork roadbed or the plywood subroadbed and it is very smooth. I use ‘Homabed’ for the mainline, and cork for sidings/spurs & the yard.
That price for the sheet stock is good. Menards also sells it in 2’ by 2’ and 2’ by 4’ ‘handy panels’ in the store here in Rochester, MN. When I lived in the Twin Cities, Hiawatha Lumber in South Mpls was one of the places that stocked the product. I do not know if they are still around…
‘Homabed’ is a little pricy, but I really like to work with it. It was sold originally by B.O. Manufacturering, and now is available via mail order from California Roadbed Company. Here is a link to the
Jim, I had some frustrating experiences bending homabed (which has “kerf cuts” to make it bendable) to radius curves. My curves are broad but I still had some splitting. Any tips?
Dave Nelson