Mdf vs. Ply?

[Imtjnotu 5,000+ posts]

wait he isnt talking birch ply?

 

[mat3833 10+ year member]

im about to build 2 boxes out of "Cabinet quality ply" not entirely sure if thats the REAL name but i got a ton of it for free the other week helping my buddy move. he got it to make cabinet doors, bookshelves, and he even made a home theater stand thingy out of it. its 3/4 and the crap is heavy as hell(a 2X4 sheet weighs more than a 4X8 sheet of 3/4 ply. it doesnt even seem to have layers. id love to figure out what it is since it looks nice and seems like it would be really nice for enclosures.

Matt

 

[gckless 5,000+ posts]

im about to build 2 boxes out of "Cabinet quality ply" not entirely sure if thats the REAL name but i got a ton of it for free the other week helping my buddy move. he got it to make cabinet doors, bookshelves, and he even made a home theater stand thingy out of it. its 3/4 and the crap is heavy as hell(a 2X4 sheet weighs more than a 4X8 sheet of 3/4 ply. it doesnt even seem to have layers. id love to figure out what it is since it looks nice and seems like it would be really nice for enclosures.
Matt

Quality of ply is usually associated to number of layers. Not always of course, but generally speaking the more layers the higher quality it usually is. My box is currently made out of 11 ply birch. You said it don't have layers? Is it particle board? If it's heavier than twice the amount of MDF, chances are pretty good it's not plywood.

 

[Jerhemy 10+ year member]

im about to build 2 boxes out of "Cabinet quality ply" not entirely sure if thats the REAL name but i got a ton of it for free the other week helping my buddy move. he got it to make cabinet doors, bookshelves, and he even made a home theater stand thingy out of it. its 3/4 and the crap is heavy as hell(a 2X4 sheet weighs more than a 4X8 sheet of 3/4 ply. it doesnt even seem to have layers. id love to figure out what it is since it looks nice and seems like it would be really nice for enclosures.
Matt

Probably some form of high density fiber board, much like MDF. Should work out very nice for a box! Great free score, too.

 

[Dtrom 10+ year member]

My box is made from araucoply. It's stronger, and better looking bare then any mdf box I've owned.

 

[mat3833 10+ year member]

its wood of some kind. you can see the grain in it. i helped him move the bookshelf he built with it and FML it was heavy. he had stained it and it looked like cherry or something. ill see if i can get a good picture of it tomorrow sometime. i may be crazy about the layers since it HAS been cut but idk.

Matt

oh and it ISNT OSB or particle. but it is heavy. probobly going to end up with 60 lb 2.7 cube boxes....

 

[mat3833 10+ year member]

hmm, well i took a closer look at it today and pulled the smaller peices out of the shed and it does infact have layers. it seems to be 4 layers. the 2 outer layers look and "feel" like a really white wood and the 2 inner layers look like a thin layer of MDF and something else. i couldnt get a decent pic of the layers so no go there.

Matt

 

[mat3833 10+ year member]

heres some crappy *** pics of three diferent edges of it. upon VERY close inspection there are 7 layers. the two outer-most layers apear to be really thin wood, about a MM thin but real wood. then you have a layer of something, a layer of what appears to be MDF, a layer of something else, a layer of something that looks like wood, another layer of what apears to be MDF, and then another layer of something.

honestly i have no clue WTF this crap is. but you can hit it with a hammer fairly hard and it doesnt dent, and when you tap it it sounds "dead" any ideas?

Matt

 

[gckless 5,000+ posts]

Veneered concrete FTW.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

That adventech flooring is really solid as well. A guy up here that does 160's in a couple vehicles swears by it.

 

[mat3833 10+ year member]

are you saying that thats what it is? lol, because i must respectully say you are a horrible troll or a moron.

Matt

 

[mat3833 10+ year member]

ok, so after some research it apears i have "7 ply oak vaneer MDF core ply".... its 7 layers plus a thin vaneer of oak on each side. the "core" is oak strips, then the next layers are MDF, then more pine, another layer of MDF. so you end up with this:

Vaneer - MDF - Pine - MDF - Oak - MDF - Pine - MDF - Vaneer

never heard of this crap, but my buddy got it from a lumber yard about an hour away. i contacted them and that ^ is what they told me i had. aparently its dense, resists moisture(within reason), and has good "anti-split) and de-lamination properties. the guy i talked to seemed to kno wtf he was talking about but IDK. think its worth building boxes out of? the wood looks nice and since its going in my livingroom thats a BIG plus.

Matt

 

[Kangaroux 5,000+ posts]

ok, so after some research it apears i have "7 ply oak vaneer MDF core ply".... its 7 layers plus a thin vaneer of oak on each side. the "core" is oak strips, then the next layers are MDF, then more pine, another layer of MDF. so you end up with this:
Vaneer - MDF - Pine - MDF - Oak - MDF - Pine - MDF - Vaneer

never heard of this crap, but my buddy got it from a lumber yard about an hour away. i contacted them and that ^ is what they told me i had. aparently its dense, resists moisture(within reason), and has good "anti-split) and de-lamination properties. the guy i talked to seemed to kno wtf he was talking about but IDK. think its worth building boxes out of? the wood looks nice and since its going in my livingroom thats a BIG plus.

Matt

If it has any sort of MDF to it it's not moisture resistant whatsoever...especially if the only thing protecting the MDF layer is a thin veneer. Never heard of ply that used MDF as one of the plys though, that's interesting...how much was it?

 

[RAM_Designs 5,000+ posts]

Maybe I'm paranoid, but I can hear the difference in MDF vs Arauco...and in small boxes too. I prefer the sound of MDF, but I'm sure if I doubled up everywhere I probably couldn't tell the difference since they'd both be pretty dead at that point with a 2ft^3 gross box.

 

[mat3833 10+ year member]

aparently it goes for ~90 a sheet depending on the grade of the vaneer. and he said moisture resistant because the vaneer is waterproof and the layers are glued and then heat pressed together. im not sure how much of this is BS or whatnot, but this stuff looks pretty darn nice. aparenttly its so heavy because the MDF gets squished by almost 20% during the pressing process. he said a 4X4 sheet of 3/4 weighs ~47 lbs.

Matt