I torture tested MDF vs. Plywood to see how they would hold up to water, weight and fire! The results were unexpected.
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I recently tested MDF versus plywood
in ten different ways. But some of you didn't
like how I did the water testing. And so today I'm going to address that. I've also got 600 pounds of cement
and a flame thrower. You're going to see what happens. You'll hear a lot of great comments
on that first video. But the ones around the water,
some of them really stung inside. And I think that can sum them up
with this one here. You totally missed the mark
with the wet ability of MDF. Ouch. Plywood will dry out and not be ruined
like swelled up flaking MDF. And there were a bunch of comments
that were all similar to that that after MDF is wet
that it does not go back to the same shape And is basically ruined, whereas plywood
when it dries out is just fine. So we're going to test that today. Here's how the first test is going to go. I've got my three samples in MDF
maple plywood with a poplar core And Radiata pine. I also have samples that I have finished
with two coats of Total Boat Halcyon Clear. Now, you'll also notice
some measurements on these, And that is the thickness of each of these
pieces of wood when they were dry. And you know,
we're going to make this scientific. I've got 12 ounces of water
in each of these mason jars. And at the last minute, I thought,
why not put some food Coloring in there
so maybe we can see the capillary action. So here we go. I'm just going to put these in here And hopefully this
doesn't overflow on my bench. I'm going to come back in an hour
and we'll get our first measurements. Now, the other big issue
you guys had with the water test was that I didn't test the strength of the MDF
after it had gotten wet. And a lot of people said once it gets wet,
it just breaks down the glue Bonds of the MDF and when it dries out,
it is completely useless.
So to test this out, I've got the same rig
that I used last time and it's just Basically a mock up of a 30 inch cabinet
and I've got a ready out of pine shelf And an MDF shelf,
and so I just load them in there And then put 80 lbs of weight on them
and see how much it deflects. But this time is gonna be a little bit Easier to see
because I got a piece of acrylic And attach it to a wooden block Because you need very scientific
and accurate measuring devices. And then I mark the baseline of where
the shelf sat with no weight on it. And then I added in the 80 lbs and marked it
again to see how much it deflected. And so if I put the ruler behind here,
we can see that the radius of pine in red Deflected just under an eighth of an inch. And the MDF over here in the blue
deflected just over an eighth of an inch. And that's exactly
what we found the first time. But now we get to expose these to water
and figure out what happens For the water exposure on these Not going to totally submerged in water
because I just don't think that's a real world. But what might be real world
is pink tiles getting this with water, Putting it on top And making sure that I have a constant
source of water on the top of it. Maybe like in the rain Or if you had a wet towel
that you threw on top of some plywood. Not really sure why you do that,
but maybe you did. So I'm going to soak these in water
and let him sit overnight. This thing is completely saturated now. All the water's running off here, and I'm
just going to set this to the side. I will come back before
I go to bed to make sure it is still wet And then that way
will have full exposure for the 24 hours. And of course, I'll do the MDF the same
way and put it to the side. And come back tomorrow. It's been just over an hour
since I dip these in the Kool-Aid. Let's see what they're looking like. All right.
Looking at these dry ones first,
You can see the two ply was ever
really soaked up the water, whereas The MDF, it's coming up a little bit,
but just barely over the waterline. Now, looking at the ones With the total boat household on it,
you can see they're faring much better. It's not coming up the side at all. And then the MDF is look at,
Oh wow, look at that. It's barely even soaking into the face
at all on this front part. I'm not going to go into the gory details
right now, But here are a few interesting
observations that I've seen so far. And on the MDF, it is soaking
way more up at the bottom than it is At the top,
and it's just really mushrooming out. And that's because of those open fibers,
I'm sure, at the bottom And unfinished, ready out of Pine is
already starting to fall apart and Flake. This is kind of weird. It just expanded and I don't think this is going to fare
very well after another 23 hours. Pretty interesting stuff. I'm going to put these back in the jars And we'll come back tomorrow
and see how they turned out. I think some of these
are going to be a complete disaster. While we're waiting for the water
to destroy some MDF, I wanted to do some extreme weight testing
and for that I got the original rig And I put some gusset on it
and I put them all in there with gold, Some me nails and even some screws
for some extra support. And if strength is measured
by the amount of glue squeeze out, This thing should be a awesome. So I've got my 600 lbs of concrete and yes,
I know it's concrete and not cement. So for everybody
who I've already commented, Think to go ahead and go change that, too. Brad, thank you very much for your time
and effort. I started off with the MDF shelves
that had the hardwood edge Banding on the front because that was
the strongest one from the last one. And as I started loading these bags
on there, they're 50 lbs apiece And stacked it up all the way to 300 lbs
There's about 3/16 inch deflection on that. And I started hearing
some creaking in the jig in the setup, But six bags was about as high
as I wanted to go. And so I took those off
and then moved over to the radiator And it was fine at the 200 in the 250. But as I got to the
300 lb, this happened, oh gosh. So if you're Thinking about using 300lb on shelf,
then maybe don't. So took the jig out the bench and I
reinforced it with some solid wood plates And that should hold at least enough
for the shelves to break before they do. Now, there's one other thing
that I also had to fix other than the jig. And by the way,
the label now is right side up. That was really bothering me
before I started loading it up And it took the 300lb just fine,
even though it was sagging quite a bit. And I went back to the MDF With the hardwood front
and I took it all the way up to 600lb And it was deflecting 5/16 of an inch,
but it was really pretty strong. I removed everything, put the radiator Pine in and amazingly
that one made it to 600lb as well, Although it did have a full three quarter
inch deflection on it. There was time for the MDF and I
put it in there and I was really uncertain As I started stacking it up
and getting to 400 and 500lb. It was sagging like crazy. So I added those last few bags on there And to my amazement it did not snap. It held the 600lb,
even though it deflected 7/8 of an inch. At that point. I wanted to add some more weight and
I started having some pretty bad ideas. I kind of want to just make it fail. I've got those two dumbbells,
but I also kind of don't want to destroy All my cameras or those things go earlier. This is bad idea. I should not do this. Yeah, we're not doing that. I was pretty disappointed
that I wasn't able to make it snap,
And I'm sure you are too. So I'm going to go back to the store,
pick up another 400lb of concrete, And then we're going to come back
and either This thing's going to hold 1,000lbs or it's
going to snap, but I got to go get it. So we'll do that later in the video
for all you data lovers and nerds like me, Here is a chart of the weight
and the deflections Per shelf so you can see how it progressed
across there. And the biggest takeaway for me
was just how strong that ends With the hardwood edge banding. Was it performed three times
better than the MDF and the 600lbs Weight and usually over twice
as good as the radius of pine. So if you're going to be making a shelf Using MDF with hardwood
edge banding is a great way to go. All right. We're back to the Kool-Aid test, and it's
actually been maybe 26 or 27 hours. And I, I can already Tell the medium has not fared
well right off the bat. After drying them off and measuring them, You can tell a huge difference
between the unfinished and the finished. You can see how much more of that red dye
that really soaked in, Especially on the MDF. That face of it of the one with The Halcyon is still brown versus
the deep red over here of the MDF. Same on the radiator, much
less on the finished and then a lot here. And then the maple actually held up
really well with just the finish on it. You can also see on the finish one It really held back the water
running up the sides as well. Now I only put two coasts finish on these And I know I didn't hit
every little nook and cranny. So if that film finish is not perfect,
water is much like life. And Jeff Goldblum has taught us that life Finds a way. The other big takeaway
was just how much the MDF sucked up. You can see this is just a mushroomed up.
It is just huge. So lots and lots of water in there
and we'll just going to have To see what happens when it dries,
if it reduces down or not. All right. Now we've got the shelves also. And these things stayed nice and wet. Oh, yeah. So taking a quick
look at these kind of interesting, You can see exactly
where the water is on the MDF, But on the radiator
is definitely spread out And that's consistent
with what we saw on the other test. The MDF is definitely a raised up, And I can tell
it has gained a little bit of water, But not that much
and it did not go all the way through. So that total penetration
has not been there. And I think part of that is just because
the face of MDF Is more resistant
to water absorption than the edges. But the radiant out of pine
may look at the bow on that. It really has warped,
which is what happens a lot with plywood, Whereas MDF swells and it's also soaked In a lot more on the edges
on this one than the MDF. But those are just general observations. What we really want to know
is the strength. So I'm going to let these dry out
and then we will put some weight on them And see if they deflect more
than when they started. All right. So we've tested these against
water and weight, but what about heat? I mean, this is a torture test, right? So I've got an iron here. I'm going to crank this thing up And then we're going to start putting it
on these samples and see what happens. I did some
testing on these and I put the iron down For one minute on one side
and then 5 minutes on the other side On each of these
to see what it would look like. And here's what I found.
Now, after one minute, the two pilots
had barely any discoloration at all. You can just kind of tell where it was. And the ADF, on the other hand,
definitely had discoloration Where you can see exactly where that iron
was. The five minute mark. Things got a little interesting
on the maple plywood. You can obviously see exactly
where the iron was. But what's happened is the veneer
is kind of bubbled up all around that heat So that he got into that thin veneer glue
and has definitely messed with it. Now, the out of pine is nice and smooth
because it has that thick veneer, But you can definitely obviously
see the discoloration And some of the charring
and burning on the MDF. It is also nice and smooth, but obviously
it's just a very much more pronounced. And when I pulled it up,
I did get a little bit of smoking. Oh, oh gosh, I love the smell of burnt MDF
in the morning. Now I wouldn't advise
exposing any of these to heat, but You're going to get some pretty immediate
discoloration on the MDF And on the ply was
they can hold up for some short term But on the long term,
especially on the thin veneer plywood, You're going to have an issue
because those veneers Are going to start separating. And I would say that the radiant of pine
held up the best out of all of them. But this is a torture test
and I think we need something Stronger. All right. I was having a lot of fun out
there, that flame thrower. I feel like Colin
Furze out there or something. I was actually a little surprised
that these things Just didn't burst into flames. And when I stopped hitting them
with the fire, they pretty much went out. But they are just all charred up
and especially the maple, That thin veneer, it's
all just peeling up and crispy And it's kind of got the crocodile
skin on the out of pine going on. And then the MDF looks like
the great salt flats. This is kind of like modern art over here,
but that was all just for fun.
Do not mix flame in wood. I mean, we were back to the water test
and I let these dry under a heavy fan. Fan wasn't heavy,
but the wind was heavy for a 24 hours And there were
some really interesting results. So let's start with the MDF and exactly
what you guys say would happen did happen. It expanded and then when it dried, it
really didn't go back to that shape. And there's nice and flaky. You can see some voids
that have actually formed in there. So I would absolutely say
that this is completely unusable. Now, on the other hand,
the plywood didn't really Deform a whole lot and really
the maple plywood held up really well. It didn't separate at all
the radius of pine. It did have that part
that started coming off. And it's got a huge warp to it Now, A great way to think about
it is India is like a sponge. It's going to soak up a ton of water, But it's not going to really travel
very far along the material. Whereas plywood is more like a straw
because the water Will go through the fibers
and it will really run down And it can ruin a lot more of your product
than it would with the MDF. And to recap everything,
I have my TPS reports available. Let's check out a chart from them. Did you see the memo about this? So I've got all the samples
listed out here And how much they grew in percent, so
that it's nice and a level playing field. And you can see that the plywood,
they took up Only about 4 to 6%
after that one hour and 24 hours. And the water in after they dried It actually came back down to just under
where it was at an hour in the water. So it's definitely still going To be a little bit deformed,
but not nearly as much as the MDF. And the MDF soaked up that red water
just like the Kool-Aid, man. It just got swole. Oh, yeah,
They could see the finished ones didn't
produce quite as much as the unfinished, And that's basically
because they have a film Finish holding that water in the same way
it holds it out. And that finished MDF just kept growing
and got all the way up to 30%. So you guys were absolutely right
that InBev is going to expand And then it's going to kind of stay
that same size, Whereas plywood is pretty close
to what it was before it got wet. That's when they've been fully submerged. So let's take a look at the shelves And see what happens
when the water's on the surface. All right. The shelves are dry and the MDF,
you can see The water exposure here in is rough
and it's a little bit raised, But not anything like it was
when you had it fully submerged. And I think, again,
that's because of the face of the MDF Resists water pretty well. And so this did not really swell up
and there's no separation in the sides. Now, the radiant pine,
you can't really tell much difference, Although there is some staining here
and there. The biggest thing with this one,
it just really warped. And we'll probably see that
when we put it in the testing. And sure enough, that radiant board
was both higher than before. And when I put it in the rig
and marked it on the acrylic, It was actually about a 16th
of an inch of a bow higher. But oddly enough,
that apparently made it stronger And it resisted the weight
more and only deflected around a 16th Of an inch versus closer
to an eighth of an inch before it got wet. On the other hand, The abs actually sagged down a little bit,
about a 16th of an inch. But surprisingly,
it deflected right about the same. They were both about 3/16 of an inch
before being wet and then after being wet. So you're probably okay
if you just have some surface water on MDF As long as it doesn't get in there. And you can really see that
It's expanded and kind of broken down
those bonds inside. All right, guys, This is the last chance to break some MDF,
so I've got a much longer board. This one is 48 inches. And I also ripped up the old test rig and
made it into some little makeshift stand. So I've got the thousand
pounds of concrete. Let's put it on here. And see if we can get it to snap. I guess before I start doing the concrete
on here, I should stand on this and See if it breaks. Hopefully it doesn't. That would be anticlimactic, wouldn't it? I think this test rig should be fine. Mark. The center of this. Look at that. I nailed it. Well, I'm on this up. A big thank you to all of the folks
joining the FTB T Builders Club. All right. It's 200lbs. Wow. This is sagging horribly more If we're not going
to get anywhere close to 1,000lbs. All right, so this is 250. All right. 300lbs, 355. Here we go. 400 lbs. Who? I do not know if this is going to snap me. All right. 450 00000, Oh, my gosh. That scared the crap out of me. All right, guys, we did it. And I'll show you that here in slow motion
in just a second. But you want to check out some other MDF
versus Plywood videos. You can check them out right there.
And I'm going to go change my shorts. Mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm. You know.