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Due to new federal regulations, look for the cost of MDF to go up...

http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... aldehyde/1

heathicus wrote:Due to new federal regulations, look for the cost of MDF to go up...

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/07/law-wood-less-formaldehyde/1

Thanks for the warning but due to the rapid increase in Government involvement, the cost of everything is going up. Everything except the size of my retirement check. Obama promised change...change we are going to get!

Hi All;
The price of MDF has already gone way up. Four years ago when I moved to Florida I bought a bunch of the stuff at my local blue big box store at $19 per sheet, yesterday I was in the same store and the price is now $29 per sheet. About a 50% increase in four years. Wish my retirement checks would go up that fast!!
Bill V

dusty wrote:Thanks for the warning but due to the rapid increase in Government involvement, the cost of everything is going up. Everything except the size of my retirement check. Obama promised change...change we are going to get!

Careful Dusty! Yer gonna set Farmer off again!:D - - - - - - - - - - He Be CORRECT!

I have a love hate relationship with MDF. When I was building my house I used it for all the decorative features throughout the house (window trim, floor molding, wainscoting, ceiling medallions, and even cabinets). I literally bought a few tons of it and cut and routered miles of it.

It nearly crushed me once while working with it in the garage. The guy that delivered it (and I pity the guy) put in on the floor half stacked horizontally and half stacked vertically. The vertical stack was leaning on the horizontal pile. The horizontal pile was about four feet high and the vertical pile was about three or four feet wide. Because the stuff is so heavy and I had to work alone, I cut the boards in place using my circular saw. I kind of used the horizontal boards as a work bench and gradually worked my way down through the pile. I would put a couple of strips of wood under the top board so that the circular saw would not cut the board underneath the top one. I had only worked my way down a few boards when after cutting off a 6" strip of mdf I banged it on the "bench" to remove the dust and the whole pile started to slide towards me and nearly crushed me against the wall. The vertical boards were what pushed the stack towards me. The vibration set everything off. Good thing I am skinny or I would have been there all night.

MDF is full of junk. It is very hard on router blades and saw blades etc. I have found many pieces of metal inside the boards. When you cut it you will see sparks even if you don't hit any metal. Don't use your favorite blades because it won't take long for them to get dull. I worked in a pulp and paper mill that used a lot of recycled material. There is a lot of garbage that is mixed in with the recycled material (dirt, sand, plastic, rags the occasional engine block etc.) and I am sure that it would be a lot easier to put this material into the mdf board than it was for us to put it in the cardboard we were making. We even put the sludge from the wastewater treatment plant into the corrugated medium we produced at the mill. Its makes a lot of economic sense to sell your wastes than dispose of them.

The great thing about mdf is that every piece is exactly the same. You don't have to worry about the direction of the grain. While routing, you are not going to have any large chips breaking off the ends of the boards and ruining your work. Even a dull router bit will make a decent cut.

All of the "wood" in the attached photographs is mdf. Even the kitchen cabinets are mdf. I even turned the legs for the kitchen island out of mdf.
Initially, I was going to change the cabinet doors to cherry when money was available, but I ended up selling the house before replacing them. They turned out great anyway. The cabinets are made from a good quality plywood however. Just the doors and the trim are mdf.

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After reading all the above, I went to Home Depot to look at material for a cross-cut table.

In one section, they had stuff in sheets and partial sheets labeled "MDF." It is greenish brown, and while heavy, easily dusted when I ran my fingernail along its edge. It also chips and gouges easily.

In the shelving section, they had shelves labeled as "Particle Board." It is covered in melamine, but where the underlay is exposed, it is not like the particle board of old. It has chips, but seems to be bonded with heavy epoxy.

In another area, they had pieces labeled as "MDF Particleboard." These were also covered in melamine, and seemed identical to the shelving except in larger pieces.

In several of the posts talking about the stability of the material, its being waterproof and suitable to miter gauge tracks, I figure you are talking about the MDF Particleboard. Then Ed in Tampa says the MDF he is referring to looks fantastic after applying a layer of Tung Oil, which the epoxy-type MDF Particleboard shouldn't take if its waterproof, so he must be talking about the MDF "brown" material.

In the Woodweb Knowledge Base, one of the contributors said this:

Too many people think that particleboard is hunks of wood haphazardly glued together. Not true. Particleboard is an engineered product with specific properties that must be met to have it graded in a specific grade and usage grouping. Particleboard today is not like the stuff we used for cabinets and so on in the 1950s. In many uses, especially structural, and in fastening, particleboard will greatly outperform MDF. Incidentally, what is MDF? It is the same wood used for particleboard, except it is made smaller (fibers or groups of fibers) before it is glued back together. It uses the same adhesive, too!

That explanation of MDF doesn't sound like the brown material I saw.

So which is the MDF we are talking about here? If it is the brown material, I can't see how it is recommended for a miter gauge extension (because it is easily chipable), or putting in miter tracks that will stay the desired width without wearing, or how owenbrent made such beautiful fixtures from this brown stuff.

Or is the "MDF" that everyone is talking about really the new epoxy particleboard that seems very stable?

Thanks.

tryinhard wrote:After reading all the above, I went to Home Depot to look at material for a cross-cut table.

In one section, they had stuff in sheets and partial sheets labeled "MDF." It is greenish brown, and while heavy, easily dusted when I ran my fingernail along its edge. It also chips and gouges easily.

In the shelving section, they had shelves labeled as "Particle Board." It is covered in melamine, but where the underlay is exposed, it is not like the particle board of old. It has chips, but seems to be bonded with heavy epoxy.

In another area, they had pieces labeled as "MDF Particleboard." These were also covered in melamine, and seemed identical to the shelving except in larger pieces.

In several of the posts talking about the stability of the material, its being waterproof and suitable to miter gauge tracks, I figure you are talking about the MDF Particleboard. Then Ed in Tampa says the MDF he is referring to looks fantastic after applying a layer of Tung Oil, which the epoxy-type MDF Particleboard shouldn't take if its waterproof, so he must be talking about the MDF "brown" material.

In the Woodweb Knowledge Base, one of the contributors said this:

That explanation of MDF doesn't sound like the brown material I saw.

So which is the MDF we are talking about here? If it is the brown material, I can't see how it is recommended for a miter gauge extension (because it is easily chipable), or putting in miter tracks that will stay the desired width without wearing, or how owenbrent made such beautiful fixtures from this brown stuff.

Or is the "MDF" that everyone is talking about really the new epoxy particleboard that seems very stable?

Thanks.

I think of it as the 'brown' stuff.(light brown).

P.S. It paints very well.

Here's a closeup (camera set on macro and placed right on the edge) of part of a 3/4" sheet of MDF that I use as an assembly table (placed on top of my Craftsman table saw). I got this from Home Depot.



It looks the same on the flip side. The curve off into the background must be an optical illusion caused by the macro focus because it has remained flat. The corners are showing a little wear however from rolling on the concrete floor when I pick it up or set it down.

MDF that I used is the brown stuff (same as the photo from the home depot). It has pretty good compressive strength on the sides, but the edges can be easily damaged if bumped. It is definitely not waterproof. If you use it in a wet area you must seal it with something or it will swell up very quickly. The quality of this material varies considerably from one manufacturer to another. I am sure there are many different kinds of mdf too. The mdf I used would not wear well unless painted. I can't see how a miter track would stand up because the edges are too soft.

The MDF in the photo's above were stained with an outdoor stain and then coated with urethane.

MDF, like so many other items that we buy, comes in many different forms. Some is good while others are not so good. If you get it cheap, it is probably just that - cheap.

Big box stores are notorious for offering lower quality items at prices too good to be true and MDF is just one of those items.

Go to a reputable retainer who deals in construction materials and buy a sheet of MDF for a project. Use it and evaluate it and then go to a Big Box for your next sheet. Only then will you really have a feel for the difference.

Having said that - I buy from the Big Box because of the cost differential but only for those certain projects. When I get ready to build something that I want to be special when I am all done, I go to the lumber yard. For me that is Hood Distribution/Mc Ewen Group.

They have rough cut lumber as well.