Choosing the right home and office furniture or cabinet has never been more complicated, given the numerous look-alike materials available on the market.
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Nowadays, the trend is gradually shifting from using solid wood for kitchen cabinets or home furniture. More and more cabinet-makers are relying on either plywood or other non-wood variety like MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard) and Melamine cabinets.
The only challenge, however, is that most homeowners can’t really tell the difference between these materials, and consequently can’t identify which cabinet construction material is ideal for their specific interior designs. Fortunately, whether you are looking to understand the differences between plywood, MDF, and Melamine cabinets or you want to know each of their special features, quality, durability, and all, this article will be unraveling everything you need to know in that regard.
Check out our comparison between particleboard and plywood cabinets to know which one works best for your kitchen
Plywood is one of the most reliable materials for making furniture and modern kitchen cabinets. This is especially if you consider how expensive it is to build solid wood furniture.
The difference between plywood cabinet construction and solid wood is that while plywood is made up of thin sheets of wood glued together artificially, solid wood is made of homogeneous natural wood materials. In other words, with a low level of glue shear strength in plywood, the planes of wood will separate easily. That’s why solid wood is generally considered stronger than plywood.
Plywood cabinets are manufactured from multiple layers of softwood veneer glued together in such a way that the grain direction of each of the veneer layers is perpendicular to that of the adjacent layers.
What this means is that the grain directions are arranged in an alternating pattern to give the plywood maximum uniform strength.
These cross-laminated layers of wood veneers are wrapped together with moisture-resistant products like phenol-formaldehyde resin adhesive and forged under heat and pressure.
Although plywood is commonly made from softwood species, some can be derived from hardwood. Among the many variations of dimensions and thickness of plywood on the market today, the prevalent dimension is 4×4 feet and the most common measurement of thickness is ½-inch.
There are lots of alternatives to choose from when it comes to plywood. You can either go for the smooth, natural surfaces ideal for finishing works or the more inexpensive unsanded grades that can be used for sheathing. Of course, you can get them in multiple common thickness measurements and over twenty different grades.
One benefit of plywood is that since it’s made of thin planes of wood veneers, it still has the looks of natural wood grain. So you can rely more on plywood if you are seeking natural wood looks but can’t afford solid wood. This is unlike both melamine and MDF which although can substitute plywood in building cabinets might not be the right building materials depending on the strength and quality you are expecting.
Plywood can be used for a lot of purposes, ranging from furniture, bathroom, and kitchen cabinet boxes to single-layer flooring, subflooring, roof, wall, and floor sheathing, webs of wood I-joists, structural insulated panels, and so on.
The lightness of plywood compared to MDF and melamine makes it’s more ideal for upper cabinets than the other two materials.
Do not paint your plywood kitchen cabinets without first reading this guide on how to properly paint your kitchen cabinets
Some unique advantages of opting for plywood:
Some downsides to plywood include,
Fiberboards (especially MDF) are another option for those who want to spend a little less on a modern kitchen and bathroom cabinetry and interior furniture.
The material is made up of multiple wood fibers blended with wax and resin in the presence of high pressure and temperature.
In the market, fiberboards are categorized in densities. Different fiberboards are manufactured in different degrees of temperature and pressure which result in different densities of the material. That’s why an HDF (High-density Fiberboard) requires more pressure and temperature than the MDF.
In short, the MDF material is somewhere between HDF and particleboard in terms of density, while the particleboard has the lowest density with a much bigger wood grain.
Medium-density fibreboard (MDF) is an engineered wood product made by breaking down softwood or hardwood particles into wood fibers using a defibrillator, then blending it with wax and a resin binder, and applying high pressure and temperature to forge it into panels.
MDF is generally denser than plywood and is made up of separated fibers as opposed to the plane sheets of plywood. But then MDF can be used as a building material similar in application to plywood such as cabinets. It is also typically stronger and denser than particle board which is made of chips and not fibers.
However, although MDF is a relatively heavy material in terms of making cabinets, a few lighter pieces of furniture can be derived from it.
See also: How to design a modern kitchen effortlessly and cost-effectively.
MDF is primarily used for indoor applications since its prone to moisture-related damage. The material is available in raw form, or with a decorative coating, or a finely sanded surface. Hence, it’s more like an ideal surface layer for furniture and the most available alternative to wood veneer. It can also serve as a good filler material.
MDF is also widely applied in furniture such as cabinets because the strong surface it provides is ideal for cabinet storage spaces, shelves, and speaker boxes. You can use the material for flooring as well because it feels comfortable to walk on.
Since it’s available in different thicknesses and sizes, MDF also serves as a perfect material for temporary structures like booths.
Here are some key advantages
Some downsides to MDF are as follows:
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Melamine Vs solid wood, Melamine Vs plywood, or Melamine Vs fiberboards is a bit complicated to be compared head-to-head.
Melamine is a popular plastic material for every modern cabinet builder which can either be used to laminate a design onto substrates like plywood or particleboard or can be used in building kitchen cabinets more specifically when integrated with MDF or Particle Board, which are made from wood chips to form HPL or TFL. That’s why comparing melamine Vs MDF or particleboard directly is a bit tricky.
One thing users love about Melamine is that the material is not only durable but also highly resistant to scratch and has numerous possibilities of hues and patterns. That’s why Melamine fused with plywood is arguably the most sustainable option for cabinetry.
Melamine resin, although Initially an organic compound is developed via polymerization as a tough and durable plastic material. In other words, Melamine is a chemical compound from an organic base and also a trimer of cyanamide.
Melamine Laminate is typically resistant to stain, heat, and fire. It’s moisture and scratch-resistant and can be found in many colors, patterns, sizes, and thicknesses making it ideal for particleboard, plywood, or MDF applications. Melamine is more like small pieces of wood (particleboard) glued and pressed together and covered with a plasticized coating.
The word “Melamine” is arguably the most widely used, not only in cabinet construction but also in other industrial unrelated to construction.
For instance, Melamine (as a material) is not only used in building woodworks like shelves and cabinets but is the same resin that is applied in Formica and other laminated countertops found in the kitchen.
Melamine is also widely used in the construction of floor tiles. Melamine tile floors are, in fact, more glossy, resistant to scratch, less prone to staining, and easier to clean. Most importantly, they’re relatively more cost-effective than porcelain or stone.
Due to the glossy nature of melamine encased boards and its ability to resist surface scratches, melamine makes an excellent material for producing whiteboards.
Achieving the best cabinet design for your home starts with understanding the differences in qualities, features, and costs, including the pros and cons of each of the three common cabinet materials (Plywood, MDF, and Melamine) discussed in this article.
And hopefully, at this point, the disparities are crystal clear, making it easier for you to make the most of your budget to achieve your custom cabinetry need.
Over the years many customers have found themselves in front of an important decision for their cabinet box material selection: particle board or plywood. One of the most frequently asked questions we get at Cabinets Quick is what’s the difference between these two materials, and is plywood really superior to melamine aka particle board.
So let’s talk about melamine first. Melamine is basically the outside two layers, it’s thermally fused on to a particle board core, and forms a hard outside layer. Because there are so many different colors and finishes available melamine is called melamine even though it has a particle board core. Particle board is actually wood chips glued together, then compressed into a board. Many people have a bad experience with particle board because they’ve experienced a low quality board or have been misled with something that looks like melamine but is actually called “printed paper” and the density of the particles are much less than what we use, value engineering at its best.
Particle board is made by taking wood chips recycled from the lumber industry and then compressing them. Vendors like Ikea use 60 pound density board, this board is less compressed and it’s less likely to hold up, along with that the outside show/finish layers are very thin or not melamine. We use 90 pounds density boards which means that the board is compressed to 90 pounds of pressure per square foot. This is a commercial grade board, at Cabinets Quick we also use a board with pine in the core as compared to others who use different fillers.
Some pros to a melamine are that it comes in a lot of different colors and finishes. It also is very cost effective and has a wipe clean surface. The surface won´t age and it’s able to wipe clean and stand-up to abuse or harsh environments. Some of the cons are it has a bad reputation, it is also heavier than plywood and it’s not as strong as plywood.
Then you have the different kinds of plywood, but before we talk about plywood, there is a material which is a combination of plywood and melamine. This board has a plywood core with melamine outside faces. Many people want to have a white interior but don’t want to have the particle board core of melamine. This is an in between material with the best of both worlds. In terms of cost this is still the same cost if not a little bit more than a regular prefinished maple plywood.
Now let’s take a look at the different plywood materials, plywood is made out of layers of thin wood and then the ply layers are stacked together with glue between each ply holding everything together. Then the two outside out-side show/finished layers are prefinished with an environmentally friendly UV coating or left unfinished to be custom finished later.
Some of the pros and cons to using prefinished maple plywood: A pro is that plywood is a little bit stronger than melamine, it is also lighter than melamine. The screw holding strength is about equal to both melamine and plywood with plywood being slightly stronger. A con is plywood dings and dents easily on the faces and the surface will age because it is real wood.
Let’s take a look at what prefinished maple plywood is. When a sheet/board of plywood is purchased, we can get it as a natural unfinished maple veneer on the outside to show layers, generally used when the customer wants to have a custom stained finish. The alternative to this is to have a board with a finish already on it. We call this prefinished maple plywood because the material comes to our factory with a durable UV finish on it. This is very cost effective because the cabinets don’t have the expense of having finished applied after it’s made.
Many people are also concerned about water resistance. Over the years through testing and experience that we have found Melamine is more water resistant. That may be surprising considering that historically people had bad experiences with melamine or what was called melamine. Both materials plywood and melamine are made from real wood the difference being the glue that is holding them together. In melamine the wood chips are compressed and coated with glue much like a big ball of dough. Why is this important? Because the wood is coated with glue and therefore prevents water from migrating through. The outside melamine faces are also water resistant. Plywood is made up of multiple layers with each layer having a glue line. Water will still migrate through the layers and then ultimately degrade the glue lines between the plies. The outside two layers of plywood are also wood so have less water resistance.
So why all the bad experiences with Melamine? This simple answer is unfortunately many people were sold something completely different to what they were expecting to receive. We at Cabinets Quick are working to change this with articles like this to educate people about cabinets and what they should expect when they purchase cabinets from any vendor.
There is a new plywood out in the marketplace. Well, not necessarily new, but new to be used for cabinets instead of drawers and it’s called Baltic Birch. This material is basically wood from the Baltics glued together in multiple layers, many more layers than regular plywood. The pros to this, is its lightweight, is much stronger than regular plywood, and this material actually has a water resistant glue line. You can identify the glue being used by looking at the edge where you can see the glue line being a darker color between the layers. The dark glue color represents that the glue is water resistant, but this plywood still has some of the same problems of regular plywood where the layers of solid wood and water were still wick through. It also has similar pros and cons to regular plywood as well.
A solution that we found over the years to the water problem is to put sealer edging on every exposed edge. When we put the sealer edging on there no water penetration into the material. We do this for many jobs we do by the ocean or when a finished cabinet look is desired. This also is a pro for melamine because even if there is a little more cost for sealing every exposed edge it is less expensive than using plywood overall on medium to larger jobs.
So what should you have your cabinets made out of? The answer to this boils down to the look and feel you would like for your cabinets. Both the materials plywood and melamine are used in the industry as a staple.
Contact us to discuss your requirements of Walnut Plywood Wholesale. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.