Compare chipboard and MDF

Among the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the male half of our edi­to­r­i­al staff, one dis­pute some­how hap­pened, and the debaters tried to find out what was bet­ter and how chip­board dif­fered from MDF. This top­ic seemed inter­est­ing, so we decid­ed to con­duct a com­par­a­tive analy­sis of these pop­u­lar mate­ri­als. It turned out that they are iden­ti­cal at first glance, they have a num­ber of dif­fer­ences, and quite sig­nif­i­cant ones.

Composition and method of production

The pop­u­lar­i­ty of nat­ur­al wood is return­ing, but not all Euro­pean are ready to buy fur­ni­ture, doors and oth­er inte­ri­or design ele­ments made of sol­id wood. This is ele­men­tary expen­sive, but why pay more and “rein­vent the wheel” if it was invent­ed long before us. In this case, we are talk­ing about wood-based mate­ri­als, pre­sent­ed in a wide range, and among them, on a spe­cial account, chip­board and MDF — sim­i­lar on the out­side and dif­fer­ent on the inside. To under­stand what the sim­i­lar­i­ties are, and where the dif­fer­ences begin, the study of the com­po­si­tion and method of man­u­fac­ture will help.

Definition and composition of chipboard

By def­i­n­i­tion, chip­board (chip­board) is a chip­board made by cold and hot press­ing. As the main ingre­di­ent in the pro­duc­tion, saw­dust / wood shav­ings of conif­er­ous and hard­woods are used (there is not much dif­fer­ence, as a rule). At the first stage of pro­duc­tion, wood waste is dried and crushed in a cycle plant. To con­nect wood fibers and give them strength char­ac­ter­is­tics, formalde­hyde resins are intro­duced into the com­po­si­tion, after which the mix­ture is sub­ject­ed to cold and then hot press­ing.

At the out­put, we see a durable mate­r­i­al with a coarse fiber struc­ture, ready for rough work. The slabs are cut into sheets of the desired size, but the mate­r­i­al is not yet ready for fin­ish­ing sur­faces and mak­ing fur­ni­ture. Aes­thet­ic prop­er­ties of chip­board are due to the top lay­er, accord­ing to the com­po­si­tion of which chip­board is divid­ed into the fol­low­ing types:

1. draft with­out the top lay­er of cladding;

2. lam­i­nat­ed, cov­ered with paper impreg­nat­ed with a melamine film of dif­fer­ent col­ors and tex­tures, they also use a spe­cial water­proof var­nish, pro­tect­ed from scratch­es and oth­er mechan­i­cal dam­age;

3. veneered with fine wood veneer.

Chip­board is used depend­ing on the type of mate­r­i­al and the impor­tance of the work per­formed. If we are talk­ing about the pro­duc­tion of fur­ni­ture for the kitchen, where there is high humid­i­ty and tem­per­a­ture changes, then there is no bet­ter chip­board. For the pro­duc­tion of fur­ni­ture for oth­er rooms, you can use a more afford­able ana­logue — lam­i­nat­ed chip­board. As a fac­ing lay­er in its pro­duc­tion, paper is used, plant­ed on glue. When per­form­ing sec­ondary work on the con­struc­tion site, rough­ing plates are used, which are also ide­al for pack­ing goods.

What is MDF and how is it made?

If ear­li­er you heard about wood-based mate­ri­als only “out of the cor­ner of your ear”, you are unlike­ly to be able to imme­di­ate­ly dis­tin­guish between chip­board and MDF, since they have some exter­nal prop­er­ties. In fact, the only thing they have in com­mon is that for the pro­duc­tion of both sub­jects, wood waste is used — shav­ings and saw­dust. The first dif­fer­ence is that in the man­u­fac­ture of medi­um-den­si­ty fiber­board (fine frac­tion), not whole saw­dust and shav­ings are used, but waste of any wood, crushed to the state of small fibers.

Small par­ti­cles of wood sub­se­quent­ly pass through the process of clean­ing with hot steam under pres­sure, then, while still wet, they are re-ground using a device called a grinder. At the final stage, the crushed waste is mixed with spe­cial resins. The mix­ture is then hot pressed. The result is a fair­ly durable, exter­nal­ly attrac­tive mate­r­i­al used for the pro­duc­tion of high-qual­i­ty fur­ni­ture. It is also suit­able for oth­er pur­pos­es, but due to the high price in sec­ondary works, chip­board is more often used.

Comparing the strength of materials

To under­stand which of the mate­ri­als we test­ed is stronger, just look at the cut of chip­board and MDF. Chip­boards are made from saw­dust and shav­ings of dif­fer­ent sizes, and ori­ent­ed in dif­fer­ent direc­tions, and this can be seen with the naked eye. Accord­ing­ly, the strength of the mate­r­i­al can dif­fer sig­nif­i­cant­ly, and this indi­ca­tor in chip­board of var­i­ous types lies in the range of 350–650 kg per 1 cubic meter. meter. Due to this vari­a­tion, the strength of prod­ucts, like oth­er char­ac­ter­is­tics, can also vary great­ly.

MDF, for its part, is made from small par­ti­cles of wood, so its den­si­ty over the entire sur­face is almost the same, and the strength of the boards does not dif­fer, respec­tive­ly. It lies in the range of 720–870 kg per 1 cu. m., and the dif­fer­ence with chip­board, as you can see, is quite seri­ous.

Con­clu­sion! Fibre­board is more durable, and stud­ies con­duct­ed by our experts have shown that MDF is supe­ri­or in strength to some types of wood.

What material to choose in terms of ecology

One of the trends of our time is a healthy lifestyle, so we try to eat healthy food and sur­round our­selves with envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly items. What do the MDF and chip­board we test rep­re­sent from the point of view of ecol­o­gy, and which of these mate­ri­als is bet­ter to use when arrang­ing a chil­dren’s room, for exam­ple.

Let’s start the com­par­i­son tra­di­tion­al­ly with chip­board, and this mate­r­i­al, pro­duced by Euro­pean wood­work­ing com­pa­nies, meets one sin­gle stan­dard. We are talk­ing about GOST 10632–2014, which does not give a com­plete pic­ture of the envi­ron­men­tal friend­li­ness of the mate­r­i­al, while in the EU coun­tries there is a divi­sion into two types: E1 and E2, and it is unlike­ly that you will be advised E2 chip­board for arrang­ing a chil­dren’s room or premis­es in a kinder­garten . Do not for­get also that harm­ful formalde­hyde resins are added to the com­po­si­tion of the chip­board, which can­not be said about the sec­ond test sub­ject.

In the man­u­fac­ture of MDF boards, resin is also used, but less harm­ful urea. It con­tains formalde­hyde, and no one hides this, but in much small­er quan­ti­ties. It is also worth not­ing the main dif­fer­ence in the pro­duc­tion process, and, unlike chip­board, MDF boards are mod­i­fied with melanin, which helps to reduce the amount of harm­ful fumes.

Con­clu­sion! Based on the fore­go­ing, it can be not­ed that from the point of view of envi­ron­men­tal friend­li­ness, MDF is more accept­able, so we can rec­om­mend it for a chil­dren’s room.

What material can be recommended for bathroom and kitchen?

Despite the “out­stand­ing” prop­er­ties of wood, it has one draw­back — in the absence of addi­tion­al pro­tec­tion, it is afraid of mois­ture. We tried to find out which of our mate­ri­als is bet­ter resis­tant to high humid­i­ty, and which is not rec­om­mend­ed for use in the bath­room.

We can def­i­nite­ly say that rough chip­board does not resist mois­ture, but lam­i­nat­ed chip­boards are not afraid of high humid­i­ty, which makes them in demand when used in “extreme” con­di­tions. There is one thing but: you need to wor­ry about the integri­ty of the cladding, since if the film is dam­aged, water, hav­ing seeped into the plate, will quick­ly destroy it. On the oth­er hand, MDF has a high den­si­ty, and does not even need addi­tion­al pro­tec­tion, so the con­clu­sion sug­gests itself.

Con­clu­sion! The water resis­tance of MDF is high­er than even in the case of lam­i­nat­ed chip­board, so it is rec­om­mend­ed to use it in rooms with high humid­i­ty.

Which is easier to handle

I would not like to praise MDF again, but this mate­r­i­al has a lot of pos­i­tive prop­er­ties. It is also eas­i­er to process, and again because of the bet­ter com­po­si­tion. We remem­ber that chip­board con­tains saw­dust and chips of dif­fer­ent sizes, locat­ed in dif­fer­ent direc­tions, which means that it is not suit­able for pre­cise pro­cess­ing, which can­not be said about MDF. Its struc­ture is homo­ge­neous, so where accu­ra­cy and cor­rect geom­e­try are need­ed, this mate­r­i­al will be just right — it is equal­ly easy to cut and mill.

With regard to the dec­o­ra­tive fin­ish­es of the test­ed mate­ri­als, I would again like to give cred­it to MDF, which is com­plete­ly ready for apply­ing a fac­ing coat­ing of any thick­ness. I would like to say the same about chip­board, but it does not work. First­ly, par­ti­cle boards have a high rough­ness, so for fac­ing with a thin film or paper, they need to be sand­ed, and this is extra time and mon­ey.

Con­clu­sion! MDF is eas­i­ly processed and faced, and there­fore is in demand in the pro­duc­tion of lux­u­ry fur­ni­ture with a pre­dom­i­nance of carved ele­ments and mold­ings. In addi­tion, chip­board does not hold, in prac­tice, fas­ten­ers.

Low price, and what else wins chipboard

In search of char­ac­ter­is­tics by which chip­board out­per­forms a com­peti­tor, we final­ly. We have reached the cost of mate­ri­als, and accord­ing to this main indi­ca­tor for many, par­ti­cle boards are con­sid­ered out of com­pe­ti­tion. If you com­pare them with MDF, then the dif­fer­ence in price can reach 50%, and this is the best expla­na­tion for the fact that chip­board is one of the most sought-after mate­ri­als. How­ev­er, you should not for­get that mon­ey decides a lot, but not every­thing, and you need to save wise­ly. I would like to say about one more advan­tage — despite the fact that both mate­ri­als sup­port com­bus­tion, chip­board is prefer­able in this regard.

A few useful hacks

1. Tip 1. To bet­ter hold chip­board fas­ten­ers, it is enough to use uni­ver­sal glue or larg­er diam­e­ter screws.

2. Tip 2. To reduce the cost of work, you can com­bine chip­board and MDF, and the con­struc­tion will be much cheap­er, where chip­boards were used as a frame, and MDF for cladding.