Compare veneer and MDF

A vari­ety of mod­ern fin­ish­ing and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als leads to the fact that it can be very dif­fi­cult to choose the right one. But you want fur­ni­ture and inte­ri­or ele­ments to serve for a long time, to be prac­ti­cal and safe. There­fore, the choice of mate­ri­als must be tak­en with all respon­si­bil­i­ty.

Among the mate­ri­als of wood ori­gin, veneer and MDF are now the most com­mon. Of these, doors, inte­ri­or par­ti­tions and cab­i­net fur­ni­ture are made.

In this arti­cle, we will under­stand what is the dif­fer­ence between veneer and MDF — and which is bet­ter for use in cer­tain con­di­tions.

Veneer

Veneer is a wood­work­ing prod­uct, the most envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly and beau­ti­ful. That is why it is often used as a fin­ish­ing mate­r­i­al. For exam­ple, veneered inte­ri­or doors are wide­spread on the mar­ket, which visu­al­ly prac­ti­cal­ly do not dif­fer from those made of sol­id wood.

The veneer is obtained from a log. A thin shav­ing is cut from it with a whole sheet. The log is fixed in a spe­cial machine, a knife is placed along it, and then the “source” begins to rotate. The knife cuts a thin wood­en sheet, which is called veneer.

That is why the veneer retains the tex­ture of wood and its nat­ur­al shade. In the future, the sheets can be glued togeth­er — and then ply­wood is obtained. In addi­tion, valu­able wood veneer is used in fur­ni­ture fin­ish­ing — it can be cov­ered with a “lay­er” of ebony, Kare­lian birch, rose­wood, and so on.

In prac­tice, veneer in its pure form is prac­ti­cal­ly not used due to the small thick­ness of the sheet. It either turns into ply­wood, or they get off with decor and fur­ni­ture items. From clean sheets of thick veneer, in rare cas­es, except that musi­cal instru­ments are made.

As a result, “veneered” doors and fur­ni­ture are either made of ply­wood or sim­ply cov­ered with this mate­r­i­al.

On the oth­er hand, veneer is envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly. Even in the form of ply­wood, it has no chem­i­cal com­pounds in con­tact with air (resins, adhe­sives, paints). There­fore, veneered fur­ni­ture can be installed in the kitchen and in the chil­dren’s room. But for the bath­room, it is not suit­able — the mate­r­i­al is very sen­si­tive to high humid­i­ty and under its influ­ence can begin to col­lapse.

So, let’s sum up.

Since the veneer itself is prac­ti­cal­ly not used in its pure form, when buy­ing veneered fur­ni­ture it is advis­able to study what exact­ly is its basis and is used as a struc­tur­al mate­r­i­al — ply­wood, MDF, chip­board, fiber­board or oth­er processed prod­ucts.

MDF

MDF (Medi­um Den­si­ty Fibre­board) is a wood pro­cess­ing prod­uct, which is a pressed chip. At the same time, the pro­duc­tion tech­nol­o­gy is some­what dif­fer­ent. Some vari­ants of MDF pro­vide for “clean” press­ing, with­out the addi­tion of binders. In oth­er cas­es, wood chips are mixed with urea resins.

The addi­tion of car­bamide resins not only increas­es the strength of MDF boards, but also allows you to give the mate­r­i­al some impor­tant per­for­mance prop­er­ties. For exam­ple, it can be flame retar­dant, water resis­tant, or resis­tant to bio­haz­ards (fun­gus, mold, pests).

The pro­duc­tion method also affects the per­for­mance para­me­ters. For exam­ple, untreat­ed MDF has excel­lent air and vapor per­me­abil­i­ty. There­fore, inte­ri­or doors made from it cre­ate a pleas­ant micro­cli­mate in the room and do not allow air to stag­nate. How­ev­er, their mechan­i­cal strength is extreme­ly low. Yes, and this mate­r­i­al is hygro­scop­ic — it quick­ly absorbs mois­ture, turn­ing into an excel­lent place for the devel­op­ment of fun­gi and mold.

The impreg­nat­ed MDF, in which wood chips are held togeth­er with resin under pres­sure, is spared from the above dis­ad­van­tages. It is strong, reli­able and durable. Able to resist pests, fun­gus and mold. It is good to make fur­ni­ture from impreg­nat­ed MDF — it becomes sta­ble and reli­able. What’s more, the resin can make it water-resis­tant — and then the table or chair can even be used in the bath­room. And, of course, it increas­es the mechan­i­cal strength of the mate­r­i­al.

On the oth­er hand, impreg­na­tion deprives MDF of air and vapor per­me­abil­i­ty. There­fore, it is not rec­om­mend­ed to use it as a mate­r­i­al for inte­ri­or doors. If the room is closed for a long time, the air in it will seem “stale”.

So, let’s sum up.

It is worth not­ing that MDF in its pure form is prac­ti­cal­ly not used (except in the pro­duc­tion of con­tain­ers and acoustic cas­es) — pre­cise­ly because of its unat­trac­tive appear­ance. Even non-impreg­nat­ed sheets are either lam­i­nat­ed with poly­mer films that imi­tate the tex­ture of wood or sim­ply have some col­or, or are veneered.

Which is better — veneer or MDF?

So, veneer is sheets of nat­ur­al wood that are used as a fin­ish­ing mate­r­i­al in com­bi­na­tion with some kind of base (or are turned into ply­wood in fur­ther pro­duc­tion), and MDF is chip­board, which is good to use as a struc­tur­al mate­r­i­al.

How­ev­er, the dif­fer­ence between the two mate­ri­als is not lim­it­ed to this.

So, the ide­al solu­tion is MDF with veneer. It com­bines the advan­tages of both mate­ri­als.