Is there such a thing as teak faced MDF panels? The majority of my living room furniture is a teak veneer (Tapley 33) and I'm now looking to build a bookcase to fill one wall. Grateful is anybody can tell me if such panels exist and who supplies.
John
(Put cat out to reply)
You can certainly get oak veneered MDF. I asked my timber merchant for oak faced plywood which he could not get hold of but offered MDF instead. MDF is heavier and weaker than ply. I expect he would have got teak had I asked him.
Don't expect to buy this in the sheds. If you are in the Southampton /Salisbury area, email me off list and I'll pass details of my timber merchant on.
Regards
Bob
Any decent timber merchants will stock this or get it for you.
I recently wanted 'A' grade sapelle veneer 6mm ply, merchants got in 2 1.2 x 2.4m sheets for me in about 10 days, also got in knot free pine veneer sheets at same time.
Interestingly the pine veneer was more expensive ... but it stains up beautifully, and matches in perfectly with some 8m long Glulam beams that are left exposed (deliberately) in my build.
Rick
I am pretty sure there is. Oak, mahogany, maple and birch certainly.
Yes. A real plywood supplier will be able to get it for you.
But avoid MDF for bookshelves. It's prone to long-term sagging under a heavy load, like books. You're better off with plywood or blockboard (even stiffer).
-- Die Gotterspammerung - Junkmail of the Gods
Try:
"real wood veneer contiboard" (sapele) is okay if it's bleached (see separate thread). You may need to add some colour for teak but at least you get the base pale colour to work with after bleaching. As long as your bookcase has supports every foot or so, and is supported all the way down to floor level, it shouldn't sag.
Nonsense.
Its no more prone to sagging than any other material when it is used correctly. MDF and chipboard cored materials are used extensively within industry for just such applications.
If using 18mm mdf (the most common used) 800mm is a safe distance to use between supports for normal book shelf loads. (Not a shelf full of phone books or the entire Encyclopeadia Brittanica, though even they could be coped with, if the shelf is supported across the rear or if a small lip is fixed across the width.)
MDF has the advantage of being capable of having its edge moulded, unlike chipboard, blockboard or plywood. Depending on ones criteria this edge can be stained to match the veneered surface saving a lot of work.
Its major downside for me is its weight .
Paul Mc Cann
MDF undergoes a long-term creep that other particle boards and natural timber boards don't.
That's 3/4" MDF though. With blockboard you could achieve similar sag on 1/2".
Edge banding. Now I might use Valchromat in the as-moulded condition, but raw MDF looks shoddy like this, unless you're careful with the paint finish.
Indeed. Wide horizontal spans of 3/4" MDF become a support problem in their own right.
-- Die Gotterspammerung - Junkmail of the Gods
What exactly do you mean by 'Creep'. Do you mean it migrates ? Are you talking about shrinkage ? Where does it creep to ?
It is a much more stable product than the vast majority of natural timbers. To all intents and purposes it is inert. To say it is inferior to natural timber in this way is nonsense.
On what do you base this statement. We have been using mdf for nigh on
15 years in the manufacture of bookcases and other items and have NEVER come across anything that could be described as creep.1/2" thick shelves over an 800mm span would look ridiculous IMHO.
Standard thickness in these situations is 18mm and modern kitchen designers are now starting to use 25mm mdf, mostly for appearances sake. If lightness in appearance is required over small spans then
15mm is common. I don't believe I have ever seen 1/2" stuff used for 800mm spans of bookcase.You left off the ctitical part of my statement, to wit, "depending on your criteria"
Also I referred to 'Staining' , not painting. Staining 'Valchromat' would be a nonsense.
With painting, mdf gives an incredibly good finish with very little effort and in now way could be described as shoddy.
Veneered Mdf can, and regularly is, edge moulded. It goes straight to the finish shop without further preparation.
I'm not saying as a modus operandi it is to my taste, hence my reference to criterium, but it is well accepted in many many applications. (Personally if doing pub and church for my own use I will lip it with hardwood and then profile the edge, if it requires profiling.)
Plywood, chipboard, blockboard etc all require having an edge applied to them to finish them. If you require a profiled edge then they will require at least 12mm solid lipping. If you wish to do two adjacent edges then this lipping will require mitreing in which case you will probably have to profile it before application and you will run the risk of the mitre grinning after a short period of time.To be done to the highest standard they will require veneering after the application of this solid edge in order to hide it from the surface view. This is all so much extra work.
So lets re-cap.
With mdf I cut it to size, edge mould it and finish it.
With blockboard, chipboard, plywood etc., I cut it to size, apply a lipping, surface flush this lipping top and bottom, profile the edge, and possibly cope with the two different materials taking a stain differently.
Bit of a no-brainer.
Paul Mc Cann
I mean the usual materials-science definition of creep - a permanent strain in response to an applied stress, which remains after the stress is removed. If this stress is perpendicular to a board, then it takes the form of a permanent bend.
If materials science is a mystery, then I suggest Gordon's excellent book "The New Science of Strong Materials: Or Why You Don't Fall Through the Floor"
His other book "Structures" is good too.
-- Die Gotterspammerung - Junkmail of the Gods
What you are calling creep we refer to as deflection. I'm not about to go into the semantics of it.
Deflection will not be a significant factor in the circumstances I outlined and certainly the deflection characteristics of mdf are considerably better than those of chipboard given similar loads/spans/material thickness
Deflection is also a characteristic of natural wood, as anyone who ever made bookshelves out of orange boxes will tell you.
And yes, deflection may be a problem with plywood and blockboard.
So again, to recap.
All of the prodoucts you mentioned are sunbject to creep/deflection.
Some are worse than others.
So it is only one factor in selection of a material for a purpose .
The material selected has to be used correctly, whether it be ply, chip, or whatever.
What it all boils down to is what I said in my original post. When used correctly mdf is perfectly suitable for the applications discussed.
And as evidenced by its widespread usage, has many other charactersitcs that make it so superior to other products that it is the first choice of many informed users.
Incidentally I don't know anyone who is currently using blockboard as a significant element in the manufacture of furniture. What is generally availble is much too agricultural for my liking. Too many voids which can telegraph through the surface veneer.
On a cost comparison plywood is generally too expensive unless one wishes to exploit its other characteristics, (say in drawer box making) , and resistance to deflection wouldn't be usually one of them.
Paul Mc Cann
No, it's different. Deflection is what an ideal spring does - take the load off and it goes back to where it started. Creep is a _permanent_ deflection, in response to a load.
If you take four shelves, of solid timber, plywood, chipboard and MDF, then you can adjust their thickness until they all deflect identically under the same load of encyclopedias. And you'll then find the timber and plywood exhibit negligible creep, chipboard will only show it significantly if it gets damp, and MDF will display sizable creep after a month or two.
I use MDF for lots of shelves - but never without a solid connection to the back wall of the cabinet. If I had to make a cantilevered or spanning shelf without a backboard, then I'd use something else.
I even get this problem in the worshop. I have timber racking, but not for sheetgoods. My plywood is quite happy in the usual sloping pile, but I get permanent sag in any MDF stored this way, just under its own weight.
Then you're limited to being inarticulate.
-- Die Gotterspammerung - Junkmail of the Gods
Come on, it's nice to have a couple of professional woodworkers on here, so stop bitching.
snip
Oh my God ! Stepped on your toes did I ?
I have been accused of being verbose but inarticulate,never.
Footpath/Side walk ?
Never heard of this phenomen.?
Same object, different words.
Let me assure there is an enormous amount of shelving out there manufactured from mdf. Hundreds of manufacturers use it on a daily basis and no doubt hundreds of individual craftsmen also. No sensible person would claim it to be the perfect material for all applications, but as I enumerated, its advantages over its alternatives for a lot of applications make it the overwhelming choice.
As I said originally, mdf is perfectly all right, WHEN USED CORRECTLY.
Forgive me if I am shouting but you will insist on deviating from the central point of the discussion .
Any material will give problems when used by the incompetent. The solution to your perceived problem with mdf , and other sheet goods, is diverse and well known
If you don't know how to use it , or if your method of use gives problems, then don't use it, but don't blame the material for your own shortcomings.
Learn how to use mdf correctly and you will find, like 1000s of other users, that it is a fine material.
And always remember an ounce of experience is worth a ton of theory or a Google through Amazon
Incidentally, if you can store plywood.chipboard or even natural timber in a sloping pile without distorting the product over a period of time I would love to have the source of this magic material. Sheet goods should ideally be stored horizontally. Vertical storage, if it has to be resorted to, should be kept as near perpendicular as possible
Paul Mc Cann
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