"Hardwood" Vinyl Flooring anyone?

[gafftaper]

Curious if any of you have experimented with the "hardwood" vinyl flooring on sets. It's relatively cheap at $0.88 a square foot (Home Depot). It looks pretty realistic. Plus it's got a little bit of squish to it which should help keep the floor a little more quiet.

I'm thinking about purchasing some for a show next fall with my end of the year spend it now money.

Anyone used it? How do you secure it to the floor in a way that can be reused? Does it sound like sticky vinyl when you walk on it?

 

[FatherMurphy]

I've done a couple of trade show booths where the client used wood grained vinyl for part of the booth floor. Texture and coloration were good, so it was a nice, realistic-looking effect. Never noticed any squeaking, but the shows weren't the quietest environments.

The vinyl was put down with double-sided carpet tape, same as any other trade show flooring. This is the 2" wide stuff, kind of like duct tape. Seems to hold fairly well, at least on a concrete floor for a week-long load-in and show. Not sure how the tape would react to a wooden stage floor, or how much trouble you'd have removing it if it was stuck down for a long duration. Double taping comes to mind, putting down a layer of gaffe tape first and the double-stick on the gaffe, or maybe a sacrificial layer of luan or something as a subfloor.

 

[gafftaper]

Yeah I was thinking about the layer of subfloor but that's starting to get really expensive. This is supposed to be a fairly cheap, fast, and quieter solution than painting the floor.

I'm worried about the tape. If it's strong enough to keep the stuff in place will it come off in a manner that the stuff can be used again?

I'm thinking about screwing down the edge all the way around with a piece of thin lath.

 

[jonliles]

Honestly, when I need a "woood" floor, I go to the outlet stores, such as Big Lots, and buy their version of floating laminate floor. Not quite 88cents a square foot, but it is close. Only securing the edges of the floor (staples, screws, whatever is handy) as I am not worried about it buckling from expansion and contraction. The underlayment adds a bit of extra quite to - and you can reuse it if you are ginger in the removal. You will scrap some if it though.

 

[gafftaper]

I was looking at that as an option too. Found it for only 99 cents/sq ft at my local crazy carpet liquidator guy... you've seen the type with the crazy commercials. I was thinking the vinyl would be a little quieter as it's got a little bit of spongy spring in it.

 

[ship]

Nope, never used vinyl tile on stage, would be worried about the gloss and unless specific to the scene in implying they were as characters in a play that would install vinyl tile in their home, I wouldn't consider it.

This nor used wood flooring either in the same "Larger than life" way to what I did on stage.. Easy enough to make a painted wood floor, tile or laminate (heck even paint an oriental rug on it) by way of craft, materials and a Sharpee to make the seams. Takes a couple of coats of paint and clear coatings but normally such a floor looks better when on stage anyway and is a trick once mastered is both easy enough to do and looks better.

On the other hand I was at a few antique shops over the past weekend and found those for their booths in a mall of antique booths as it were that did something such as tile or laminate flooring in many cases did have a sort of effect on me as a customer visiting the booth as opposed to the normal concrete flooring noted. This effect of floor assuming the audience can see it does have effect on the audience as a whole picture. On the other hand, dependant on how far away the audience, such flooring be it store front or painted might play a roll in those further away perhaps not getting the same essence as those closer to a real or realistic wood floor - thus the painted one that often balances it out in all getting the same idea.

 

[gafftaper]

In my little black box the audience is literally inches from the "stage", heck, the worst seat in the house is never more than about 25' from the "stage". Thus it would take a much better scenic artist than I... or at least one with more time than I have... to paint a floor that would have the right look.

You've got to see this new vinyl stuff Ship. It comes in 12' rolls and looks pretty good. When compared to the laminate stuff it's about the same glossy wise. I'm thinking I'm going to buy a bunch of the laminate instead. I'm worried about the vinyl having the wrong sound.

 

[Van]

I've used both, and for the money I greatly prefer the laminate over the vinyl, even though the vinyl is very realistic looking.