MDF ... More Done Faster

MDF ... Stands for a lot of things in our shop ... Technically, the trade name is medium density fiberboard ... other possibilities are More Done Faster, More Done For less and More Dust Forever ...

We were slow and resistant on the uptake for sure, but have come grudgingly to admire it's many fine qualities such as flat, cheap, stable (or at least more stable than a lot of other materials), great for quick mockups and models, great veneer substrate, machines very well, relatively strong, paints great, did I mention flat and cheap? Anyway, I forget how we were first introduced to it but I know we hated the dust and the fact that it wasn't 'real wood'. The dust is much less annoying than it used to be as we are now much more careful to capture it at the source and, unless it's my imagination, the dust has become less corrosive and irritating than say most zebrawood and rosewood, some mahoganies, and the merado I was cutting on the bandsaw today. That one caused Trevor, who was working 10' away to come over and open the damper on the bandsaw where I was cutting chair legs.
But it's a great thing to be able to mockup a chair like the ones above before you build them out of solid wood ... Click the photo above and enlarge it and you'll see some lounge chairs. One is solid mahogany and two are painted mdf with sold wood arms ... Can you tell which is the real wood chair? Didn't think so ... Also in that photo, there is a painted mdf sculpture, and a round mahogany table with a painted mdf base that started out as a pool table leg mockup ...
Recently I was asked to make some furniture for a client's guest house. Since they already have several of my solid mahogany lounge chairs, they asked us to create a couch version. I wanted to replace a loveseat in my house that I made from a previous mockup about 10 years ago, so I used their request to explore the concept in mdf .. It seemed to work so well that I suggested the guest house couch be made the same way. Because of the reduced cost, they ordered two couches and two chairs ... Not a problem for me ... The tapered thing in front, was an idea that occurred to me as a reading lamp and what the hey, we'll make an mdf one of those too while were at it ... No problem ... You can see the finished lamp and the round mahogany table base better in the top photo.
Trevor added the poplar seat support frames and the upholsterer came by to measure for cushions today ... we'll start the painting and finish the solid wood arms tomorrow ...
We also had a request for an unusual mirror frame ... I couldn't figure out how to work around the short grain and narrow frame joinery/clamping issue and since it was going to be gold leafed, hey we'll try that in mdf too ... Gold leafed mdf... I love that concept ... Now if I can just get the mirror cut .... We talked to our waterjet guy today and it may come to that ... Waiting for quotes ...
The mdf takes a nice detail for shadows on the 1.5" frame.
The 1/4" mirror pattern was nice and flat too ...
And then, over at the big island house they needed a custom pair of tall closet doors. The other 30 or so doors in the house were made by the TruStile Doors folks, entirely in mdf with some poplar edge inserts, but their lead time was 5 weeks so we were called on to the job ... it went way better than I thought and the doors were flat, square and true when we were done ... Since they meet in the middle with no center stile, they probably have a better chance of staying in alignment than a pair of poplar doors would ...
Below we're gluing up the stiles and rails using titebond II .. quick and easy, and did I mention flat?...
And lastly in this post on MDF, I'll link to our previous posts on display fixtures and the beauty of mdf for creating those .... Literally, we couldn't do those jobs without it ... Wagathas dog biscuit racks ... made over a hundred of those already .. and our not quite patented Vew-Do balance board racks ....