Melamine Particle Board Shelving

[Jeff Duncan]

I should have mentioned that I was a bit satirical with my post. I hate all man-made board. I know MDF stays flat, but Lord is that dust horrible. Then the idea of using a soft plastic covered particleboard behind select hardwood fronts seems like a cruel trick. The fact that folks use it because it is easy to wipe down. Maybe we're simple folks here, but when was the last time you took out all the dishes and wiped down the shelves in a cabinet.

No problem Richard.....and I don't blame you at all for hating the stuff I could be wrong, but I don't think ease of cleaning really enters the equation. Companies that use it like it for the reasons mentioned above....it's flat, cheap, and requires no finishing. Look at it this way, you buy 3/4" pre-finished plywood in bulk and your paying close to $70 a sheet, melamine closer to $30 a sheet. Now add in that it's easier to machine as it stays flat and you don't have any finishing costs...cost wise it's a no brainer! Customers on the other hand like it b/c it's clean and flat and....cheap!

Now if we really break it down what are we comparing....plywood, which is made of layers of wood glued together and coated with a plastic finish. And melamine, smaller bits of wood glued together and coated with a plastic finish. Not all that different when you really break it down to basics

Now as for mdf....that stuff really is evil I hate it and the dust it makes when machining. But again here's the rub.....I use it all the time Nothing better for paint grade raised panels IME

JeffD

[Jeff Monson]

But again here's the rub.....I use it all the time Nothing better for paint grade raised panels IME

JeffD

That's good to know Jeff, how do you seal the raw part of the mdf before you paint it? Plus do you paint the entire panel before assembly? I have a built in project that I'm doing right now that is painted. I'd use MDF in a heartbeat knowing that it makes good raised panels.

[Jeff Duncan]

Jeff, I spray the panel with primer before assembling the door, just as I would spray a solid wood panel with stain before assembly. To be honest mdf makes a better panel than solid wood, I know the traditionalists may scoff, but mdf is flat and stable which is great for panels as they won't shrink and swell seasonally cracking the paint where the panel meets the stiles and rails.

These doors are solid maple stiles and rails with mdf panles and poplar bolection moldings....


Inside is a "middle" end(?) shelving unit made entirely of white melamine...


I think it's a nice clean look. The master closet in this house is a whole different story and was done with a special order chocolate melamine.

good luck,
JeffD

[Jeff Monson]

Wow Jeff, very nice!! I would not have guessed the panels were MDF. So I'm going to give them a shot. Couple questions, if you dont mind.

I usually use -1/8" on panel length and -1/16" on width on solid raised panels for movement, what do you factor in on mdf as it is not going to move??

The "poplar bolection moldings" you have on the doors, do you have any info on how they are done? And can they be applied to a 3/4" drawer front?

Thanks

[Jeff Duncan]

Jeff, I think maybe you posted it backwards? The larger gap on solid wood should be for your panel width, it won't really change size much in height.

The spacing you leave for the panels doesn't matter much. Most of those doors for instance, were in the 30" +/- range so you would be looking at a 20" or so panel. If you look at a wood movement calculator you'll see that for such a wide panel wood movement seasonally could be significant, with mdf.....not so! These panels, as all my mdf panels are, were glued in place. So I usually just leave roughly 1/16" gap all around just to be safe and make it easy to get everything together.

The bolection moldings presented a bit of a challenge as I had not done them prior. I'll try to explain them, I just can't promise I'll do it well? They're simple enough to make the molding itself, you can get something off the shelf and just run a rabbet on the back. As I needed many hundreds of feet for all the doors on this job I had a local shop run it for me. The trick is with the added width of the molding and my current tooling I could not do a full profile on the panel and still have enough tongue left to engage the door stiles/rails. So I figured out a work around. I ran the door stiles and rails with a custom set of knives cutting what was basically an oversize shaker style door with a 3/4" x 3/4" tongue and groove....(these doors are 2-1/4" thick!). After I assembled the doors I took 3/4" x 2" poplar stock and glued it into the grooves that would normally hold the door panel. The actual door panels were 5/8" ultralight mdf sized to fit within the confines of the bolection molding instead of the door frame. I then glued and pinned them in place and finally glued and pinned the bolection molding on top of them.

I don't see why you couldn't try them on a drawer front as long as it had the size to allow them. It's hard enough to get a raised panel on drawers much smaller than say 6" - 7" so adding in, (or subtracting really), for a bolection molding may be tricky there....just depends on the size? And the door thickness doesn't matter either. Here's another shot of the same project with cabinet doors....


Not a very good picture, but you see how we kept the overall style of the doors the same between the cabinet and the passage doors.

Hope this helps, feel free to PM me with any other questions, I'm afraid we may be hijacking this thread

JeffD