Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
What's the difference between particle board and MDF?
I've been looking at other ww forums and there was a discussion about using each when building speakers. Lots of debate about which was best, but never described what the difference is. I guess I could google it, but this seems a good place to ask and may spur discussion on their suitability for other uses.
Re: What's the difference between particle board and MDF?
Particle board (chipboard as I know it) is composed of small wood chips bonded with adhesive and compressed into a panel through a heated conveyor belt type system to create a flat panel of consistent thickness. The chips are graded so that larger chips form the core and fine chips form the outer shell. The panels produced are oversize and at the later stages pass through a series of sawing stations to produce boards of specified length and width, e.g. 2440 X 1220 mm (8' X 4'). There's also a sanding process to ensure consistency of thickness.
MDF production is similar, but the material used, also wood, isn't chips but fibre created in machines. The fibres are shredded wood and often look like small corkscrews or stringy bits of fluffy stuff. As above for chipboard coarser fibres form the core and finer fibres form the shell, and the manufacturing process is similar.
MDF is heavier than chipboard because there are fewer voids and more wood is packed into the board's volume. A typical sheet of 2440 X 1220 X 18 mm MDF weighs approximately 45 kg (~100 lbs). Chip/particle board of the same dimensions typically weighs about 37 kg (~80 lbs).
As to what might be best for building speakers I've no idea so you'll need to look elsewhere for an answer. Slainte.
Re: What's the difference between particle board and MDF?
Essentially, both are garbage held together by a mixture of cow piss and other chemicals.
For speakers, MDF would be the betterchoice; heavy, uniform thickness and density.
Re: What's the difference between particle board and MDF?
Particle board looks like sawdust in panel form.
MDF looks like very thick paper.
Jason
Re: What's the difference between particle board and MDF?
Similarities: Heavy, cheap, flat, smooth, and averse to water and moisture. MDF is finer textured and machines better and holds detail better, so it can be used for moldings as well as furniture substrates. It also costs somewhat more than particleboard. Both come in higher-density grades, which are used for more specialized applications. MDF is also available with moisture-resistant resins. Both are widely used for speakers because of their high density, dimensional stability and smooth surface, resulting in a high STC (sound transmission class/coefficient) that means it reflects more sound rather than transmitting it. Both are used extensively in office furniture for work surfaces, desk and filing system parts, etc., most often veneered with wood or laminate. Both are available coated with melamine, used extensively in kitchen cabinet carcases because it resists scratching and doesn't require finishing.
Parenthetically, I once did a kitchen job for a Marantz engineer, and as partial payment he designed a pair of speakers for my shop. They were 2' x 2' x 4' roughly, built out of 1-3/16" Novaply (a trade name for one of the high-density particleboard varieties) and outfitted with top-shelf drivers and crossovers, with interior particleboard baffles in a tunable "transmission-line" design that I only vaguely understood. Needless to say they weighed a ton, but the shop was rockin'. Sadly, they went down with the shop in '99.
Ellis
Re: What's the difference between particle board and MDF?
I think your chipboard is our oriented strand board (OSB).
Re: What's the difference between particle board and MDF?
No Dave, chipboard here in the UK, and elsewhere is most definitely the same material as what North Americans know as particle board.
OSB, orientated strand board is named the same here as it is in North America. OSB is also sometimes known as flake board.
There are quite often name differences for the same tool, item or product across continents and societies which is why I often use alternative names for the same thing to reduce confusion if possible, thus particle board/chipboard.
I guess my use of both terms confused you so I suppose my strategy didn't work on this occasion. Slainte.
About $9 a sheet at Home Depot...
Lots of good answers... A third choice, OSB, was mentioned, Early on it started as Wafer Board. The manufacturers thought they could make wafers about the size of your palm and smaller and glue them together in sheets and rely on random orientation to give the sheets plywood like properties. Turns out the wafers tended to be rectangular and orient themselves lengthwise in the sheets, making the sheets fairly strong in the length but very flexible in the width. They changed the process to lay down layers with the "grain" oriented at ninety degrees like plywood and we have Oriented Strand Board (OSB). The flaking process allows them to mane panels out of smaller trees and to use the whole log. Plywood must have larger logs and leaves behind the core of juvenile wood that gets flattened on two sides, treated, and sold as landscaping timbers.
Particle board was and attempt to use the saw dust that accumulated by the ton at sawmills. Some of it gets used to fire boilers for heat and power at mills.
I just sold 124 acres of pines. The broker tells me that a lot of it goes to make Diaper Fluff, whatever that is.