"vinyl floor tile as bases" Topic

Some while ago someone suggested that I base my figures on vinyl floor tile. At the time I rejected the option but am now seriously considering this.

What pros and cons do you see to using floor tiles? Is the scale of miniature a consideration? How bad is the warping? Any other comments?

DA BUG….

I've suggested it a lot.

Pluses are it is cheap, easy to cut to shape, thinner than most bases and can be used with any scale of miniature.

Up to about 2" by 2" it will not warp or bend (mine have not) but beyond that it will bend a bit but can easily be bent back into shape.

EDIT
And putting labels on the bottom is easy, just print them out on your printer and stick it on to the back.

The bug has bit.

To whomever asked about vinyl floor tiles for basing…

Been using them for years. I buy the cheapest, regardless of design: typically around $0.39 USD/square foot tile. I peel and stick two together, glue-side to glue-side. Then I cut them to size needed using a heavy utility scissors.

The warping really is an issue when you apply PVA Glue and sand to them, when they are larger than 1.5"-square. I used them to base 54mm Army Man figures, which I would paint PVA Glue onto, then dunk their bases in sand. They would be good for around six months -- then they would warp horribly, rendering them useless.

To be honest, I have switched completely to MDF board. It tends to be a bit thick, around 3mm – 5mm thick, but it does not warp, even though I paint PVA Glue onto it, and dunk it is sand. I have bases more than a year old, with this technique employed: no warping, whatsoever!

What I still use the vinyl floor tiles for, is as a backing to 2D terrain printout's. I print, and cut out, Fat Dragon Game's Copper Dungeons -- Basic Dungeons, and adhere these to the glue side of vinyl tiles. It makes them heavy, and easy to use. If they warp, I flex them back into shape, and place them on my tabletop. They work superbly. Using vinyl floor tiles for other purposes, such as building FDG castle towers, has not worked out, in the long run, so please ignore those topics. Cheers!

I bought an army from a friend who based Figures on vinyl tile, Using contact cement.

Very nice if you wanted to use those bases, but I needed to re-base the figures. I tried X-Acto knife and sharp pliers, I had to cut around the base, with snippers, then basically sand off the bottom. That was taking too long. So I set them all on cookie sheets with the water to just over the top of the tile, And boiled it On the stove top. eventually the tiles got soft enough that I could wedge out the figures with a putty knife.

So if you don't plan to re-base the figures, then vinyl is very nice but perhaps not with contact cement.

Contact Cement? No wonder. I use elmers glue and have rebased a lot of figures, all it takes is a utility knife to pop them off the tile.

That is also only true if you don't use too much glue – enough to patch the Titanic is too much.

I have actually gone to a big-box home improvement store and gotten a sample of all the different Formica types (about sixty or so) these are thin (1-2mm) nearly indestructible, and impervious to nearly every solvent you can imagine.

Liquid Nails (the brown kind, the "small jobs" white stuff is rubbish) holds perfectly.

I used them to base my F.o.W Finns over a decade ago and they are still in perfect shape.

Anton Ryzbak, did you add texturing material to your Formica bases? If you did, what adhesive did you use? Curious if applying adhesive, and texturing materials, would cause any warping. Thanks for sharing your method, as well. Cheers!