Medium-density fibreboard
An engineered panel of wood fibres bonded with resin, uniform in every direction and dead to vibration.
Medium-density fibreboard is made by reducing wood to fibre, mixing it with adhesive and pressing the mat into a flat sheet, which leaves no grain and identical behaviour in every direction. In guitar making it appears as a backing for veneer, as internal formwork in cheap cabinets and as the baffle of budget speaker enclosures, where flatness and density are useful and sonic character hardly matters. It is commonly described as dead-sounding, because its resin-bonded fibre structure damps vibration rather than carrying it. It is also heavy, swells badly once wet, and some binders release formaldehyde, so it never belongs in a body or a neck.
Example: An MDF speaker baffle is flat, cheap and acoustically inert, which is precisely why the same board would ruin the sound of an instrument body.
typical use: Cabinet baffles, veneer backing and internal formwork, never a body or neck.
See also
Related
- PageCabinet
- PageSpeaker
- PageLaminate
- PageAdirondack spruce
- PageAfrican blackwood
- PageAfrican mahogany
- PageAaron Dessner
- PageAce Frehley