How well do these "machine", compared to "real wood" counterparts? E.g., if I square up an edge, will it stay squared up? Or, will it "round"/smush in the process?
Am I going to regret using good tools (planer, etc.) on them?
Particleboard is pure junk
If you use it, you'll regret it
Agreed. MDF is a bit better, dimensionally stable but will succumb to water after a while. It swells and not necessarily uniformly. I have a few pieces that were on the floor under my table saw and got wet from rain under the door. 3/4" is now closer to 7/8 and wavy on top. If you can keep it dry, it is OK. The gold standard would be the pure plastic "Starboard"/"Azek" type stuff. Trex is somewhere in between. None of them have the rigidity of a good hardwood.
Not enough info.
Particle board? MDF? MDO? Medex? Melamine? Pioppo-MDF Plywood?
Be specific and maybe we can help.
Ever tried MDO?
I was just throwing out the various options. If things never get wet or live with high humidity, particle board will work. I was only referring to what happens when things get wet.
| Agreed. MDF is a bit better, dimensionally stable but will succumb to | water after a while. It swells and not necessarily uniformly. | I have a few pieces that were on the floor under my table saw and got | wet from rain under the door. 3/4" is now closer to 7/8 and wavy on | top. | If you can keep it dry, it is OK. | The gold standard would be the pure plastic "Starboard"/"Azek" type | stuff. | Trex is somewhere in between. None of them have the rigidity of a good | hardwood. |
I'm assuming he's not talking about outdoor use, so I wonder why Trex or PVC or vinyl would be comparable. I also wonder what aspects you value to call plastic "the gold standard". It's ugly outside... It's even more ugly inside... It's relatively expensive... Did I mention it's ugly? OK for something like fascia and soffets, if your house is already ugly, but mostly it only seems appropriate for utility usage where water is a problem, like a ground-contact trim board.
I use MDF for laminate substrate, on top of fir plywood. It has little shear strength, absorbs water, and chips easily, as it's really a composite of paper sheets. But it's very dimensionally stable with good compressive strength -- just the thing for laminate countertops. I can't think of much else that it's good for. I xometimes buy cabinet doors from a shop that likes to use MDF panels. They'll use birch ply if I fight with them, but they don't like to. To my mind 1/4" MDF is not a good choice for that. If it gets wet or gets hit the panel will have to be replaced.
I once built bookshelves for an architect's office of MDF. They wanted an "honest" material, with no seams and no edge banding. :) That worked OK. The shelves were all dadoed and the whole was painted with oil-base trim paint. The shelves didn't have long spans, so the MDF was strong enough for the use. But I chipped one corner of the bottom delivering them. It hit the sidewalk and knocked a chunk off. Very delicate in that respect.
You just have to seal all of the edges before you put it up and it will last forever. I have MDO on my pontoon boat and it gets soaked a few times a week for the last 25 years. That is about 8,000 hours on the water.
| Ever tried MDO? | Yes, for things like painted exterior panels. I wouldn't compare that to MDF, though.
I actually used 1/2" MDO yesterday to make myself a storage compartment for my truck. I never use the radio/stereo and it takes up a lot of space, so I took it out and made a box with a flip door, of MDO, which I've spray- painted black. I figure I can use it for storing misc items like pencil, paper, napkins, etc without having to reach into the glove compartment for them. I would have preferred to use something like baltic birch ply, which can be sanded very smooth even on the cut edge, but MDO scrap is what I had on hand, and it's smooth enough to simulate black plastic.
I notice a lot of builders using MDO for panels on pseudo-historical condos. They put up MDO panels and trim them with pine. But they don't hold up very well. Water gets in at the bottom, behind the pine trim. So instead of being a 50-100 year siding job it's more like a 10 year job.
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I can't see anyone thinking of using a planer on particle board (or any other "sheet lumber")!
Think: Trex, TruWood, etc. "Dimensioned lumber" -- the sort of thing you would consider running through a jointer, planer, etc.
They stay square within the nature of the product. They rout OK with the same caveat (particle board tends toward rough, MDF fuzzy).
I can think of no reason to use a planer but you could do so. ____________________
Philo considers particle board to be junk; I consider it to be useful, especially mel board. Not good around water and not strong in shear but plenty strong in compression.
How many people on this newsgroup know what all those abbreviations mean? I sure dont!!!!
I know what particle board is, and Malamine is a plastic used to make some plates (for the kitchen). That's all I know of this whole list!
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How is your ignorance regarding composite wood products relevant?
Why does your statement require 4 exclamation points?
Don asked a question about how well "composite wood products" machine, without naming any specific composite wood product. No one here (or anywhere) can offer an answer without knowing what type of product he was asking about. Well, I guess we could offer an answer related to each and every product, but that would be huge waste of time.
Really? Malamine? I have no clue what Malamine is. Can you point to a website explaining what it is?
I'll return the favor. Read Page 2 of this document to get a better understanding of some Composite Wood Products. This is only a partial list:
notice too, that don has not yet replied to this, yet has replied to other posts just sayin......
MDF is not widely available? And not good for much?
OK...
| >Particle board? | >MDF? | >MDO? | >Medex? | >Melamine? | >Pioppo-MDF Plywood? | > | >Be specific and maybe we can help. | | How many people on this newsgroup know what all those abbreviations | mean? I sure dont!!!! | Some of it also isn't particle board.
"Particle board" usually refers to the heavy, dense slabs made of glue and sawdust. MDF is medium density fiberboard. It's basically compressed kraft paper with glue. MDO is medium density overlay, which is plastic-impregnated kraft paper on fir plywood, intended for outdoor painted surfaces such as signs. Medex? Beats me. Sounds like a sinus drug. Melamine is the sutff that coats cheap, particle board shelving.
There's also HDO, high density overlay, which is the silvery plywood used for concrete molds.
None of it has much to do with shaping and planing. It's soft plastic, cheaper than laminate, which is what used to be used. They're all pre-finished, limited-purpose products. It's not surprising you haven't come across MDF or MDO. They're not widely available and really aren't good for much.
Is that what gives it the wood-grain look? I know it's some sort of plastic. I thought it was like "Contact paper".
My house had particle board shelves in the closets. I put soem stuff on them and they sagged so badly, I thought they would break. I replaced them with REAL WOOD !!!
Melamine is also used to make plates that you eat on. Some of them do not work in the Microwave. For some reason the plate gets real hot. I found that out after burning my hand on one of them.
| >a sinus drug. Melamine is the sutff that coats | >cheap, particle board shelving. | | Is that what gives it the wood-grain look? I know it's some sort of | plastic. I thought it was like "Contact paper". |
Sometimes it actually is contact paper. :) Melamine is the stuff that's usually white and relatively soft, like vinyl. It's a thin plastic coating. If you look at cheap shelving units you're probably looking at melamine-coated particle board. One can also buy
4x8 sheets to use for things like white cabinet walls.| My house had particle board shelves in the closets. I put soem stuff on | them and they sagged so badly, I thought they would break. |
Yes. Years ago people used to all buy furniture from a company called Scandinavian Design. The company made particle board furniture at fairly high prices, but the teak veneers they used looked pretty good. Poeple would call me because someone had sat on their SD desk and it split in half. Or they loaded their SD bookshelf and it split. I'd have to explain that there was nothing I could do because there was no structure to repair. Even the desks were made of particle board.
I guess the equivalent now is Ikea. I see a lot of people who can easily afford better going to Ikea to buy particle board and other low-budget stuff. We in the US seem to have a hypnotic fascination with the techie starkness of Scandinavian style. We think we're buying sophistication. I actually had a job recently that was in a very exclusive condo. The kitchen cabinets looked sort of like rosewood. They'd come from some hyphenated Scandinavian-esque store on the fashion street of Boston. (Newbury St.) But they were actually just plastic laminate on top of low-quality particle board. Almost chip board, really. Low density stuff that one could peel apart with a utility knife. The tenants didn't know the difference. They were paying multiple millions for their condos. They simply assumed the kitchen cabinets were very "high end". And indeed they were, insofar as they could only be obtained by going to an expensive fashion store.
| Melamine is also used to make plates that you eat on. Some of them do | not work in the Microwave. For some reason the plate gets real hot. I | found that out after burning my hand on one of them. |
Are you sure you don't mean Melmac? I grew up with Melmac dishes. They were cheap and unbreakable. Melamine seems awfully soft to use for plates.
| MDF is not widely available? And not good for much? | I've never seen it at Home Depot. (Nor have I seen MDO there.) I buy it at a specialty plywood shop. And I certainly can't buy it at the local lumber yards. Though some of them have limited stock of MDO.
Maybe it's different in your area. In my experience Paintedcow's question is normal: Anyone who hasn't specifically needed MDO or MDF has no reason to know about either. They're special-use products.
I think of MDF as occasionally useful junk. I buy it sometimes as a substrate for laminate. Other than that, I don't know of any good use for it. It will bow under weight. It's extremely sensitive to moisture. The edges and corners chip very easily. It's very heavy. Anyplace where someone might use MDF I'd probably use birch plywood. Sometimes saving money just isn't a bargain.
I buy MDF for a kitchen job, then have a few scraps left over. Then a few months later they've become swollen, yellow fungus farms because I left them in my cellar shop. Then I have to cut them up and put them in the rubbish.... but not too much in each bag because MDF is so heavy.
What else would you use it for? Maybe a painted valence? I see it used for fake wainscot, but besides being ugly I think that's just really dumb. One spill of water down behind the baseboard and the wainscot will be ruined.
Its a need to know project and "you" or anybody else just don't need to know : )
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