MDF - new and improved?
I'll preface by saying I've done as much reading (on GW and internet) as I could these past few months before ordering our kitchen cabinets. Seems to be a 50/50 whether plywood box construction is 'better than' MDF. Really difficult to discern, too, when folks say MDF, did they really have junky particle board in front of them? And vice versa. Based on cumulative reading and DW leak last year (which resulted in cheapy particle board cabinet 'feet' disintegrating), we asked for (and paid for) upgrade to 1/2" plywood construction boxes.
We received cabs where some (the ones w/o exposed sides) were indeed 1/2" plywood all the way around. (A big part of this is that I was very specific about upgrading to 'conventional' plywood boxes, and that's not what we received.) However, on some of the base cabs, back and unexposed side are plywood, but exposed end panel is, well, not sure what: some sort of MDF sandwich, for lack of a better term. This is left side of one of the base cabs - left side exposed (MDF sandwich):
Right and back, 1/2" plywood:
I'm now hearing that there is a "new and improved MDF" (HDF?) being used, even by high-end cabinet lines.
Am meeting with the cabinet company rep today, but would like to be separately educated: can anyone point to literature out there specifically about this new and improved MDF? Or is it marketing? And how would I know if what we have is the new and improved?
What also struck us as odd/inconsistent is that for these two lower cabinets (that needed to be modified in depth - 16" and 18"; they'll be parked back to back to comprise the end portion of our island), they used real plywood on the left cab and MDF (?) on the right cab:
And the composition of the panel on the right cab is completely different from the 3-ply MDF sandwich from the first cabinet shown -- here's the top view. Appears to be 'conventional' plywood sandwiched between outer MDF layers.
The cabinet boxes are otherwise well constructed, I believe, and the wash on the doors/drawers/faces are beautiful (i.e., exactly what we've been looking for!).
Any solid info on modern-day MDF would be appreciated. TIA!
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