Friday, January 21, 2011

MDF Is .....

Commenting Assignment ..... MDF (see post below) is:

* The Killer App
* The Devil's Right Hand
* Never Touch the Stuff
* The Shakers Would Have Loved It
* Maybe, Maybe Not
* A Slippery Slope From Which There Is No Return
* Has No Place In "Fine" Furniture

Discuss ....

7 comments:

mckenzie said...

great for jigs! And that's the extent of my use of the product.

-tyler

Jason Herrick said...

Yes, great for jigs. Also great for painted finishes that need a very smooth high gloss finish. I also hope the manufacturers continue to improve upon it's durability, weight, and horrible crap they sometimes use in it.

Jeff Branch said...

Maybe, maybe not. It also splits easily when driving anything into "end grrain". I use it for some non-structural elements of painted furniture.

Bartee said...

Always good to have around. You never know when it will fit into a project.

Always enjoy your posts. You guys do amazing work.

aaron said...

All of the above, I think most use it because of the profit margin associated with doing so and justify it to themselves by its "stability".

Dorset Custom Furniture said...

thanks everyone ... yeah .. thumbs up on jigs and also for forms for bending and laminating ... still wondering what the shakers would think .. carefully predrilling with the correct size drill bit (test in other edges) helps minimize the splitting problem for us ... sometimes we insert cross grain dowels for the screws to bite into for extra holding power where necessary ... for myself, it's not necessarily a profit motive that drives me to use it, but the feeling that mdf is sometimes the 'right' or even 'best' product for the job ... i don't necessarily think it's an inherent 'quality killer' ...please continue with more discussion .. thanks ..dan

woodchippy said...

There is no doubt M.D.F has its place in construction. The one thing that concerns me more is the health risks caused from using this material. Or maybe its just me, because hardly ever have i seen a finish carpenter on site using a respirator. To me its a big enough concern to want to stop using this material.
Excellent blog, really enjoy reading it.