I’ve been struggling for a while thinking about what would make the best base for my mosaic tiles.  It must be:

• Magnetic
• Cheap
• Preferably lightweight

Finding this combination hasn’t been easy.  I could buy a 4×4 piece of steel for 25$ but that is definitely not lightweight and expensive to ship.  I looked into perforated steel but this was getting prohibitively expensive.  I finally found this material called FlexIron that is supposedly magnetically receptive but also lightweight and flexible.

I recently got a sample in the mail and it seems to deliver.  You can see here that the material is pretty thin – and indeed flexible.

Is it magnetically receptive?  Yes.  These are some powerful magnets that stuck to the FlexIron really well.

Next test… How well will it hold a 20 mil magnet with a 3/16 piece of plywood attached?

Success!  The magnet holds – even when upside down.  It doesn’t stick as well as the more powerful magnets, but for my purposes that may be better.  I’m going to order some more of this stuff and my plan will be to attached pieces of this material at regular intervals on a Foam Core base.  Hopefully these will hold the tiles in place – while still allow for easy changing of tiles.